2 - i cry babel, babel, look at me now
~*~
part 2: i cry babel, babel, look at me now
~*~
When he first woke up, Arthur was convinced he was dead. Everything around him was white, the light was so strong it hurt his eyes, the sounds around him were all rhythmical and everything smelled clean and fresh. His head hurt. He couldn't feel any other part of his body. Somehow, that didn't scare him.
He blinked a few times, hoping the world around him would clear up. It didn't. All he could see were light and shadows, different shades of white and grey. No matter how he turned, the place where he was wouldn't come into focus. For some reason, this didn't worry him.
In fact, he felt quite... all right. He felt oddly free, considering he was trapped in his own body. There was a weird sensation of floating, a kind of dreamy quality enveloping him. Like he was just on that line between sleep and wakefulness. He closed his eyes again and let himself sink back into sleep.
~*~
Arthur watches the fields pass by. He's almost tempted to count the trees. His stomach feels like he had a very volatile chemical concoction for breakfast (he didn't have any breakfast, precisely to avoid the discomfort of feeling the half-digested food crawling up his throat, so clearly his day is already going exactly according to plan). Gwen is driving and while he knows she's not the most relaxed driver, he still wishes she would talk to him, because the closer they get to Cambridge, the more he feels exactly like the bitter young man he was when he went there first and that's not exactly an emotional setting he wants to go back to. He has an unwanted flashback to being 20 and being driven to school by some nameless professional chauffeur because he couldn't do it himself. He shakes his head to get rid of the connection.
“You don't have to do this, you know,” Gwen points out, looking at him in the rearview mirror. Arthur is momentarily overwhelmed by a strong feeling of fondness for Gwen.
He thinks about his answer. The truth is, as unreasonably nervous as he is, he's also, maybe, a little bit excited. And maybe even nostalgic. He looks down, hoping the realization doesn't show on his face. “No, I'm doing it. I promised.”
Gwen smiles. “Always respecting your duties,” she says. Arthur just nods. She doesn't have to know everything.
~*~
When he woke up again, the pleasant feeling of weightlessness was gone. He was sore all over, he could swear someone had weighed him down with some three tons of metal and he still couldn't quite feel his body properly. The room around him was swimming a little, but at least now he could tell it was a hospital room, not his new permanent residency in the afterlife.
The rhythmical sounds were still there. They sounded more mechanic now. The steady beeping of a heart monitor was underlined with a quiet whir of electrical equipment. He slowly became aware of a tube in his mouth. He wanted to take it out, but he couldn't gather the strength to lift his arm and actually do something about it.
He didn't feel sleepy, but he closed his eyes again anyway. Hospitals were never good news and his stomach was already instinctively churning with nerves quickly turning into panic. He wasn't ready. He very deliberately steadied his breathing and started counting backwards from 100. By 58, he was already falling asleep again.
~*~
Gwen opens the door for him. His chair is waiting for him just outside the car and he easily pulls himself into it. His hands shake a little, but as soon as his body settles into the soft, worn leather he's so used to, he calms down. It's kind of ironic, he thinks, that something he hates so much is simultaneously such comfort. He doesn't dwell on it much. He prefers not to.
Gwen stands next to him, his suitcase in her hand. “Hmm, I think they painted,” she says. He doesn't miss the teasing tone of her voice.
He rolls his eyes. “Alright, alright,” he replies. “It's not exactly how I remember it.” The housing building that he used to spend so much time in, even after all these years, feels like a shelter, like an old friend he hasn't seen in a long time - different (larger, of a different color, maybe a little less welcoming looking than it was when Arthur last saw it, or maybe he's just imagining that part), but still familiar. He pauses to look at everything around him, subconsciously comparing it to the university he remembers.
Gwen squeezes his shoulder before heading towards the apartment complex with his luggage. “Turn right as soon as you enter, down to the end of the hallway, room 4-83,” he tells her.
“I remember!” she replies, already at the door. “Well, are you coming?” she prompts, looking over her shoulder.
“Yeah, yeah. Just give me a minute.”
He watches her leave but doesn't follow, at least not yet. For a few moments, he wants to just be there and take in his surroundings, to get a feel for this new version of his old home, to listen in on conversations and see the students rush by; it's a little strange to be in the center of student life and no longer be a student. He sits there as the entire campus unfolds around him, snippets of lives floating to his ears and in front of his eyes: older students, talking about career plans and scholarships or parties and friends; and new students, still slightly confused and overwhelmed, not yet quite comfortable with the new friends, the new place, the new system. Arthur can still tell them apart as easily as he could when he was one of them. Some things, he supposes, never change.
But some things do. Like the newly paved paths, wider and smooth under the wheels of his chair, or the green areas that are obviously better maintained than they were back in Arthur's day (even though right now they were just big muddy patches due to yesterday's rain), or the new store to the left of (Arthur pauses before he thinks of it as his - there's no need to regress quite that much) the housing building, or the fact that the ramp leading into his building is new, stable and long enough to be easy to navigate. In fact, when he looks a little more carefully, straining his eyes to see the entrance to the housing complex 3, it appears the rest of the campus has been made more accessible to the disabled. Arthur smiles. He remembers the donations he sent anonymously, requesting that they be used to make Camelot a university that caters to everyone's needs, but he didn't really expect his wishes to be respected exactly to his liking.
It's early afternoon on a Saturday, the temperature rather low, but it's not raining, so quite a few students are outside. Some are doing their weekly shopping (Arthur remembers spending exorbitant amounts on long lasting products to avoid going to the store often), some are waiting to meet their friends (the ancient willow, easily one of the most recognizable parts of the campus, is still a popular meeting place, it would seem), some are already working on school projects (huddled together in the niches of buildings and trees, with stacks of paper and pens in various colors, or typing away furiously on their laptops) and some are just walking around aimlessly. Unexpectedly, Arthur imagines himself in their position, younger and with his whole life still ahead of him, wanting a breath of fresh air and deciding to go for a walk, turning left and right randomly without running into people who look at him with pity or awkwardly offer to help him. He blinks to pull himself out of that thought.
He's aware of some students noticing him from the way they look at him, more or less surreptitiously, and a few people even seem on the verge of walking up to him, but in the end, nobody does. Arthur is glad for it because he still likes to pride himself on being independent and not needing help (even though Gwen might have a different story to tell), but at the same time he thinks, stupidly, that it's a sign of how distant and disconnected people have become, how little they care (it's something Gwen laments about every once in a while, so he blames her for planting the idea in his head).
Gwen, whom he didn't notice walking out, startles him out of his thoughts with a, “Do you need me to help you inside?”
“No,” he answers, having cleared his throat twice to find his voice.
“Okay, well,” she says, then stops, bringing her hands together and cracking her fingers awkwardly.
It suddenly hits Arthur that Gwen is leaving, that this is the last time he'll see her and speak to her in person, the last time he'll touch her in a week. It didn't seem like such a long time until that very moment, but faced with the reality of living completely alone for the first time in years, Arthur suddenly finds that it feels like ages. It's weird because between both of them being constantly busy and raising two children, they don't actually spend that much time together, but Arthur can nonetheless feel Gwen's presence in his life all the time, in the little things like too much sugar in his tea or warm and creased sheets to wake up to. It's jarring to realize he won't have that at all for a while.
“I'll see you in a week, then,” Gwen says. She cradles his face in her hands and leans over to kiss his lips, then his forehead.
Arthur takes one of her hands in both of his. “I'll Skype you in the evenings?”
She nods, then turns her head a little to the side, like she's thinking about something. “We haven't been apart in a long time, have we?” she asks rhetorically, crouching to be at level with him and kissing his hand. “It's weird, right? It's not just me.”
Arthur purses his lips awkwardly. “Yeah.”
“Oh, Arthur,” Gwen chides fondly. “You've always been absolutely horrible at goodbyes,” she says (and isn't that just the truest thing). “I'll see you soon!” She kisses the top of his head before she walks back to the car, gets in and starts it. She rolls the window down to wink at him and hits the horn twice as she drives off.
Arthur responds with a hand raised in goodbye and waits until the car is out of sight.
Then he lowers both his hands to the wheels of his chair and starts rolling them towards the ramp. He sighs as the wheels of the chair hit the ramp - he remembers how he used to associate that moment with the true beginning of the new school year, and now it's all here again, like not a day has passed, like things haven't changed one bit, like he hasn't moved forward at all; he's almost ready for the long days of classes, late nights of studying, precious evenings with a small group of friends.
There's the sound of something heavy being dropped to the ground, followed by quick footsteps and a shout of, “Wait, I'll help you!” somewhere to his right.
“No need, I'm fine!” Arthur yells back barely refraining from rolling his eyes - it still happens every once in a while that someone sees him for the first time and assumes he needs a hand, which he more or less politely refuses, usually coldly enough for them to stop talking to him altogether.
Which is why, seconds later, he is as close to jumping out of his chair as a paralyzed person can be when he feels his chair move seemingly on its own. Shocked, he twists his head so he can see behind himself and he fully expects to be met with a familiar head of a pointy and pale face, huge ears sticking out at an odd angle, a mop of black wavy hair in dire need of a cut and, a pair of piercingly blue eyes, the person smiling at him widely, revealing almost perfect white teeth.
Instead, he sees a cute young blonde, wide-eyed and rosy-cheeked and friendly-looking. And then her face disappears downwards. “Oops,” she says, reappearing in Arthur's line of sight. Arthur frowns and turns back around. “I'm sorry!” the girl says, her voice getting closer. “That was a terrible first impression, I know, gosh, I'm so terribly sorry!” She ends up standing in front of him, one of her hands bashfully covering her mouth and the other holding onto her rucksack straps which keep falling off her shoulders. She looks young, very young, although that may very well be because of the cropped pants which both make her look like she just hit her growth spurt and reveal her mismatched socks.
Arthur thinks he actually likes her, in a fatherly sort of way. “It's okay,” he says, smiling at her kindly. He means it as a polite dismissal, but she doesn't seem to get it as she continues to stand in his way. He almost runs into her when he tries to move.
“Oh, I'm in your way,” she says, making it sound more like a question then a statement. “I'm sorry. Again,” she adds hastily, moving to the side.
“It's okay. Again,” he replies, moving past her.
“Aaah, um, I, errrrm,” she calls after him.
Arthur pauses, takes a deep breath and schools his face into a neutral expression. He likes this girl, she seems sweet really, but he's tired and this push-and-pull kind of a stilted conversation is not putting him in any better of a mood. “Yes?” he asks, moving to turn around again. Unfortunately, she's closer than he thought and this time he does run into her. His feet hit her in the shins before he can stop himself.
“That's okay!” she's saying before he can even open his mouth to apologize. “I should be more careful, sorry. Are you alright? Oh, silly, why wouldn't you be, I mean, you probably didn't even feel that, right?” She slaps a hand over her mouth quickly. “I... am gonna stop talking now.”
Arthur laughs, shaking his head. “Did you want something?” he finally asks directly, figuring he would never get out of there otherwise.
“Oh, yes, um. I'm studying to be a nurse and one way to do extra credit is to help disabled students and staff, and well, I ended up with you,” she says quickly, in one breath, her cheeks coloring.
“I see,” he replies, taken aback. He spoke to neither Helena nor Gaius about any help during his stay, so he's not sure how he feels about having someone tag along with him. It makes him feel patronized, like they didn't think he could fend for himself.
“It's part of the changes that were implemented a few years ago, to make it easier for disabled students. I understand that things were different when you went here?” She plays with the hem of her shirt, trying to look nonchalant but Arthur can see that she's genuinely interested in what he has to say. It makes him feel marginally better, it makes him feel important.
“They sure were,” he replies, but gives no further explanation. He resolutely doesn't think about the last time the university assigned him a student to help him out.
“Uh, so do you need me to help you with anything? I promise not to drop anything on you,” she jokes.
“No,” Arthur answers, “I'm fine.”
“Oh, okay. I'll visit you every day after class and oh!” She starts digging through her bag, looking for something. The thick-rimmed glasses she's wearing slide down her nose and she pushes them back with her knuckles, but a strand of hair catches on her ring. She yanks it out. “Aha!” she pulls her hand out of her bag and hands Arthur a piece of paper with a neatly printed phone number on it. The name Elena is written under it. “I wrote it down because I wasn't sure I'd remember it,” she says, looking down at her hands. “Look, I know you must think I'm some incompetent... fool, but I promise you, I'm not! I just get flustered when I'm nervous.” All the time she's talking, she doesn't dare look at him. Arthur finds it rather endearing.
“I'll call you if I need anything, then,” he says, holding up the piece of paper she gave him. He hopes that's answer enough for her, because he's not sure what else to say.
She smiles brightly at him. “Yeah,” she says. “Okay, um, well, bye!” She turns around on her heel and takes a few quick steps, before she stops suddenly. “My name's Elena, by the way,” she adds, looking back at him over her shoulder.
“Says so on the card,” Arthur comments quietly to himself, still smiling. Maybe, just maybe, this whole thing won't be that bad after all.
~*~
He kept his eyes closed. His father was in the room and he was talking to someone. Arthur didn't recognize the voice. He was relatively certain it was his doctor. His father sounded upset. His voice was shaking. Arthur couldn't remember the last time he heard his father sound so broken.
He was still too out of it to focus on what they were saying. He picked up on his name, a few numbers and more than a few medical terms. He tried to tune out the voices by focusing on the heart monitor still beeping away. He couldn't tell which side it was on. He couldn't tell where anything in the room was just from the sounds. He started panicking. The beeping got faster.
The conversation stopped. Arthur squeezed his hand around the sheets covering him. His fingers barely moved.
“Arthur?” His father sounded infinitely closer now. The bed moved as his father sat down next to him. “Arthur, are you awake?”
The doctor was saying something about calling a nurse. Someone's hand was on Arthur's upper arm. Arthur wasn't ready, but he opened his eyes anyway.
~*~
“All of our buildings have elevators now,” Helena informs him as they proceed down the hallway. Arthur remembers having classes and exams in lecture halls on the floor below them, in that very same building. He's never been upstairs, though - whenever he needed to see a professor, he'd send someone to their office in his place or request a meeting somewhere he could get to. He looks around himself curiously, like a child rediscovering a long forgotten place. “The library is another floor up, should you ever need it, but you can access the virtual version via the temporary account we've set up for you on the university website.”
Arthur nods, his eyes scanning over a section of the wall with several framed photos on it. One of them is his. A white plaque underneath says Famous graduates. Arthur is both uncomfortable and flattered. He wonders how many students will recognize him - he hasn't changed that much physically.
“You'll be based in Gaius' office, right down the hallway here. There are seven other offices on this floor, but,” she pauses to give him a look he thinks is supposed to be in some way significant, but he can't interpret it, “I'll leave the socializing to you.”
Her high-heeled shoes click on the polished floor and her voice carries. He is quiet and his chair makes no sound. He imagines for a second what it must sound like from behind closed doors of the offices they're passing - one pair of footsteps and one voice. He covers an inappropriate laugh with a cough.
“Gaius lectures in other buildings as well, but we've scheduled all your lectures downstairs. For easy access.” He knows she expects him to be grateful, but all he feels is the sting of an insult. He doesn't comment, instead turning to read the name on the door to the office on his left (it's Aredian and Arthur can't even believe the guy still teaches, he was ancient when he taught Arthurin his first semester).
A door squeaks in front of them and Arthur turns. He recognizes Gaius' awful fashion sense before Gaius even turns. He looks much the same, his hair a little longer and a little whiter and his gait a little less steady. Still, it's definitely and unmistakably Gaius with his eyebrow still raised to make him look like he's perpetually judging everyone. Arthur is not sure why that in particular makes him nostalgic for the time when he could joke about Gaius and not feel guilty.
“Helena!” Gaius says, spreading his hands amicably.
“Gaius,” Helena replies. Arthur tries not to question their relationship.
Gaius murmurs something, noticing Arthur for the first time.
Arthur is not sure what kind of a greeting to expect. He took one year of Gaius' Intro to Pharmacy and he wasn't awful at it, but he didn't excel either. Based on his performance in class alone, he would've figured Gaius wouldn't even remember him. But there are other things he knows Gaius will remember. He wonders how much Merlin's told Gaius and if he should be worried.
“Doctor Pendragon,” Gaius just says professionally, extending a hand. Arthur takes it.
“Please, Arthur is fine,” he replies awkwardly, completely taken aback by one of his old professors referring to him by title.
“Hmm, very well then. Arthur.”
Arthur listens carefully for any resentment or reproach in Gaius' tone, but finds none. He's not sure if Gaius is a good actor or if he just doesn't know the whole story. Either way, he allows himself some relief.
“Let me show you my- well, for the time being it's your office,” Gaius says, taking the few steps back to his office door. He goes to open them, but finds them locked. Arthur frowns. He just watched Gaius lock that door himself not three minutes ago. “Where did I put my keys now,” Gaius mumbles under his breath.
“They're in your hand,” Helena informs him, sounding like she does it every day. Arthur looks up at her, frowning. “Don't worry, he's retiring at the end of the year,” she whispers.
Gaius coughs. It sounds rather like Arthur's (clearly unsuccessful) attempt at hiding a laugh from earlier.
~*~
“A car accident?” he repeated as soon as he found his voice. He sounded like he had been swallowing gravel. His mouth felt dry even after two cups of water. His head hurt and he wished he could sit up, but the best they could do for him was raise his pillows up a little. His father was still talking but Arthur couldn't follow. He felt his brain operating on slow.
He looked around the room as best as he could. He was alone. The bed next to his didn't even have sheets on. No doubt his father's doing. He wondered if his mother was in a single room as well. He wondered why his mother wasn't in the same room as him.
“Where's Mom?” he asked, ignoring the fact that his father was in the middle of a sentence. There was an awkward pause where his father almost looked caught off guard. Then he stood up and turned his back to Arthur.
“She's dead,” he said simply.
~*~
Arthur adjusts the microphone in front of him. His other hand is shaking when he picks up the paper with his lecture plan. For all that his time back at Camelot so far has been much better than he expected, being in front of an empty hall and watching more than a hundred students slowly pour in through the double door at the back is intimidating.
He wishes he wasn't sitting at a regular desk, brought in especially for his benefit. For some reason he expected something more solid in front of him, something that would hide the fact that he was a cripple. It's stupid, he realizes, these kids will have been told who he is, they will have done some, however meager, research; odds are that they already know about his injuries. Still, somehow, Arthur feels self-conscious sitting there, in front of so many people whose only plan for the next hour is to stare at him.
He stares down at his papers, waiting for the hustle and bustle to settle down. Looking at the bullet points of everything he needs to say (about his credentials, about his lab, about their work, a subtle mention of a few of his co-workers) calms him down. For someone who refused to prepare for this moment until only a week ago, he feels adequately ready.
When the noise has settled down, he looks up. It's funny, the seating arrangement is much the same as it has always been - the front row of unfamiliar faces is staring at him earnestly, their laptops at the ready; the far left side is reserved for groups of friends who, even this early into the hour, seem more interested in talking to each other and paying attention; the back rows are half-empty, and those who are there look like they're about to fall back asleep.
Arthur clears his throat pointedly. To his surprise, everyone sits up. And so does Arthur.
“Good morning,” he says, his voice booming from the speaker behind him. It doesn't shake. “My name is Doctor Arthur Pendragon and your next four lectures in bio-engineering will be with me. I specialize in spinal cord injuries...” He finds that, as he starts talking, he forgets that there are people there, listening, watching, judging. This is something he knows, something he is confident he could talk about in his sleep. The words come naturally and he quickly becomes so immersed in what he's saying that he manages to completely ignore it when someone starts to turn their ballpoint pen on and off rhythmically less than 15 minutes into his lecture.
~*~
Something was wrong. Well, something more than what Arthur had been made aware of. He could feel it in the way everybody treated him, in the way his father only even vaguely talked about taking him home, in the looks all the nurses gave him, in Morgana's silence whenever she sat with him. He focused on those things, latched onto them like a lifeline. It was better than thinking about the fact that he'd never see his mother again. It was better than thinking about how that was his fault.
At night, when no one was there and the room was so quiet he could only hear his own breathing, he would stare at the ceiling and think of all the ways that night could've gone differently. And then he would close his eyes and think of all the ways that night didn't go differently.
He didn't cry. He wanted to, but he couldn't. He didn't know why, but the tears just never came. It was shock, he told himself. It was numbness. It was denial. But it wasn't, he knew that. It wasn't that he couldn't accept the truth. It was just that the truth was that he didn't deserve to be able to cry when this was all his fault.
So, instead, he thought about what it was that everyone was hiding from him. He already knew he had a broken arm, a concussion, a back injury. He already knew he couldn't move his legs, but when he asked anyone about that, they told him he was still healing, they told him to give it time.
Well, he'd given it time. He was supposed to go home tomorrow. He'd given it enough time. His father had a meeting he couldn't reschedule and he wouldn't be there for Arthur's daily check-up. Arthur decided that was his time to ask whatever he wanted.
“How are you feeling today, Arthur?” Dr. Cavanaugh asked.
“The same.”
Dr. Cavanaugh nodded and wrote something down in Arthur's chart. “Are you excited to go home?”
Arthur ignored the question. He'd been thinking about this all day, and yet, he still didn't know how to ask what he already suspected. In the end he just looked at Dr. Cavanaugh's serious, but kind face and said, “I'm not getting better, am I?”
Dr. Cavanaugh sighed and sat down next to Arthur. He was in his mid-fifties by Arthur's estimate, but his hair was almost completely grey, making him look older. He had a deep, soothing voice. When Arthur first spoke to him, he wondered why he hadn't been a psychiatrist.
“Arthur,” he said calmly, like Arthur might freak out on him if he talked too fast or too loudly. Arthur suddenly wished with a burning passion that his doctor was some terse, uninterested asshole. Someone who wouldn't coddle him and try to help him. “You're young. Your injuries are... not as extreme as we originally thought. If there ever was a chance for recovery, you have it.”
“Don't lie to me,” Arthur replied. He was surprising himself by how calm he was being.
Dr. Cavanaugh gave him a long, hard look. “Odds are you will never walk again,” he finally conceded.
Arthur fell back against his pillows. It was the answer he'd been expecting. It was the answer he'd been wishing someone would finally actually give him, straight and honest. It was the answer he'd known for a while but needed someone to confirm.
“Are you okay?” Dr. Cavanaugh asked him carefully.
“Yeah,” Arthur replied, with complete sincerity. It wasn't the answer he wanted. But it was the answer he deserved.
~*~
The main office of his faculty building is blissfully empty when he goes to get some coffee. He has a fresh pot though, because apparently, someone didn't get the common decency memo. On a whim, he decides to check Gaius' mailbox (Gaius told him no mail should arrive, but Gaius doesn't seem like he's exactly all there all the time; but then, Arthur is still undecided on whether that's the real state of things or if Gaius is just pretending so he can get an early retirement). Arthur can just about reach Gaius' mailbox, but it's way too high up for him to see inside it. He feels around it with his fingers and finds nothing. He reads a few more names on the mailboxes in front of him, some that he recognizes and a lot more that he doesn't. For a moment he imagines his own name on one of those mailboxes, he imagines knowing people and not just their names. He's not sure if he likes the idea or not.
His water is not boiling yet so he turns to the large schedule on the opposite wall. He wheels himself closer, only meaning to see if there are any new departments; he ends up reading the schedules of random professors, curious about the number of classes they have, the amount of free time. He finds a couple with the same last name in the Psychology department (siblings or married, he wonders) and either three people with an incredibly similar foreign last name or someone whose last name no one can spell properly in the Anthropology department.
And then he finds something he doesn't expect, a name he didn't think he'd read again, a person he thought he'd left behind, one Merlin Emrys.
Arthur suddenly feels cold all over.
~*~
Arthur was fine. He was fine as he sat on his bed and watched Morgana gather his things into a duffel bag and carry them out. He was fine when they helped him into a hospital wheelchair. He was fine when his father showed him the wheelchair they bought for him. He was fine on the car ride home. He was fine as he refused to think about all the changes he'd have to make in his life to accommodate his new condition. He was fine with subconsciously expecting his mother to meet them at home.
And then, when his father took him to his new room, to the room where his mother used to sleep, read, eat, work, live, now filled with his stuff and redecorated to suit him, when his father left him there and walked out without a word, when the door closed and Arthur was left alone, he was suddenly not fine anymore.
In the end, it wasn't the pain and it wasn't what anyone said that broke him down. It was just seeing, for the first time, the consequences of his own stupidity. It was being finally and irrevocably made aware of the fact that his life had changed completely in that one moment. It was the guilt he felt when he looked at the room he was now taking over from his mother, probably the only person who truly had his back always.
In the morning he would meet the stay-in nurse his father had hired and he would have to face the anger he knew his father was rightly feeling toward him, but it wasn't morning yet so he allowed himself a moment of weakness and cried.
~*~
“Oi, you monster, get back here!” Morgana shouts. Arthur quickly lowers the volume on his laptop.
“Please tell me you didn't give him sweets after bed time. Which was two hours ago, by the way.”
“Of course I did,” Morgana replies, managing to grab Mordred's arm as he tries to run past her. She pulls him into her side so the camera catches all of their face. “Say hello to daddy and then you can go run all you want,” she says, her nose pressed to Mordred's cheek.
“No, you can't run whe-“ Arthur tries to interject.
“Hi, Daddy,” Mordred says cheerfully, grinning. “Bye, Daddy,” he adds, waving and the disappearing from Arthur's screen. Arthur rubs his temples. He's getting a headache just looking at the mess back in his house.
“What, they don't have grandparents, and someone needs to spoil them,” she says, shrugging.
“How are you babysitting my children?” Arthur moans.
“Because Gwen had an emergency at the hospital. She apologizes for that, by the way.” Morgana reaches forward, somewhere where Arthur can't see, and her hand comes back with Arthur's favorite mug. Arthur raises both his eyebrows. “I wanted coffee,” Morgana replies, tipping her mug towards the camera. “Irish.”
“I have one too!” Morgause chimes in, also reaching towards the desk so she can show him the twin mug to Arthur's favorite, the one Gwen usually uses.
“Morgana, please tell me you're not feeding my children with chocolate and coffee,” he says slowly.
“Noooo,” Morgause replies instead in a sing-song voice. “Chocolate and more chocolate!” she explains, bringing the mug close to the camera. Arthur can see a marshmallow floating at the top.
Arthur sighs. “Are you trying to kill them with too much energy?”
“I'll have you know, you once told me that a chocolate bar combined with hot chocolate is the best dinner ever,” she says, mock-seriously.
“I was thirteen,” Arthur counters.
“Oh would you loosen up for once Arthur,” Morgana replies nonchalantly. “Go catch your brother,” she tells Morgause, who runs off immediately, screaming. “So, how are you doing? Is being back at university as bad as you led me to believe it would be?”
For a moment, Arthur considers telling her that years ago, he let what could have been the relationship of his life slip through his fingers, that he didn't know how to go back, that he let it go and that now, for the first time since then, Merlin is within reach again. Arthur's whole body thrums at the thought, as if it's responding to the pull of an invisible force.
“Well?” Morgana prompts.
“Um, yeah, no, it's actually fine. Like you said, I forgot university wasn't actually that bad,” Arthur says, a split-second decision he knows he'll be questioning hours from now. “Have I told you about this girl who's helping me? Elena, she's cute as a button. Gwen would love her.”
~*~
“You know, your friends are asking about you,” Morgana said.
Arthur snorted. “No, they're not.” He changed the channel on the TV.
Morgana didn't contradict him. She couldn't, Arthur knew. Maybe people had wondered why he stopped going to school in the first few weeks, but that was months ago. Arthur's friends weren't the kind to hold his hand through something like this. Arthur knew that. It had been so long since he'd made peace with that that he could almost pretend he didn't even need friends.
“Lancelot is,” Morgana eventually said.
Now it was Arthur's turn to have nothing to reply with. He knew Lancelot had been calling every day while he'd been in the hospital, and then every other day since he returned. He couldn't put his finger on why he didn't want to answer any of Lancelot's calls. Lance wouldn't be able to hear anything wrong in his voice, but Arthur knew Lancelot and he knew Lancelot knew him, so he was sure Lance would guess something was very wrong if they spoke.
He didn't want Lance to see him like this. He didn't want anyone to see him like this. That was part of the reason why he never left the house anymore. The rest of the reason was the fact that he didn't see why he would go out - his father had agreed to get him tutors instead of sending him back to school and the things he used to do in his free time no longer had the same appeal.
The doorbell rang. Arthur was still not quite used to how loud it was now that he lived downstairs.
“That would be me,” Morgana said. “I should go.” She stood up and started towards the door, but then she turned around and came back. She bent over, hugged Arthur and kissed his cheek before leaving.
Arthur didn't know how he felt about the fact that Morgana had a social life now, while he sat at home, doing nothing. He was even more confused by the affectionate, almost sibling-like relationship he was developing with Morgana. For reasons unknown to him, she was there for him now. After years of making each other's lives miserable, they were becoming real family. Something in Arthur melted at the thought.
~*~
Elena always sits in the first row in his lectures, a bit off center, with a friend Arthur doesn't know but recognizes by now. She's smiling at him, the (wrong) tip of her pen pressed to her full lips, bright red with lipstick. She nods when she catches him looking at her.
The guy in the back, all the way to the right wall, he reminds Arthur of Gwaine. He's charming and attractive and clearly very bright, but also doesn't seem to care about anything. Or maybe's it's just Arthur's class that doesn't tickle his fancy.
The Asian girl in the very center of the auditorium is scribbling in her notebook. By the speed at which her arm is moving, Arthur can tell she's not writing. Probably doodling.
Arthur is aware of the fact that he hasn't spoken in several minutes. A few of the students are looking at him questioningly, and Elena seems to be getting genuinely concerned.
It's his last lecture here, his last opportunity to leave a good impression. Any impression. He thinks back to all the guest lecturers he knows visited his class years ago, and he knows most of their names and even their fields, but their lectures all meld together and he's sure he learned something in them, but for the life of him, he can't remember anything important, anything that stood out about any of them. He remembers his conversation with Gwen, hates to admit she may have been right all along, but he doesn't want to be just one more in the sea of random people these students will forget as soon as they leave the hall (or rather, will only remember as the wheelchair guy and Arthur will be damned if he lets that be what defines him in their minds).
“When I was here,” Arthur says before he can change his mind, “this university was only partially modified to accommodate disabled students. I had to find, well, creative ways to get what I needed. Or wanted.” He laughs as a memory surfaces in his mind. “Once, a friend actually, bodily carried me to exam because I couldn't reschedule with that particular professor.”
“Aredian,” Elena snorts, and the whole hall erupts with laughter. She squeaks and covers her mouth with both her hands, going crimson to the roots of her hair. Arthur laughs with the rest of them.
“Yeah, actually, it was him,” he admits. “The point is, it was difficult to have the same quality of education, the same opportunities as everyone else.” He pushes away from the desk in front of him and wheels out to sit next to it. He's weirdly dissociated from what he's saying, but he still can't look at anyone as he speaks. “And I thought, if only I was like everyone else. If only I could walk and run and go up the stairs. If only I could... fix myself.” The hall is eerily quiet. Arthur has to look up, if nothing else, then only to ensure that there are still people there. He notices Gaius standing in the back, by the door. He pays no mind. “And that is the story behind how I started university and how I finished it. The simple reason for everything I do.”
He lets out a long breath, feeling like he's been holding it for the last week. He clenches his fists for something to do other than wonder how long he's been waiting to say that. When he looks at his students again, he decides to focus on Elena - a familiar face, a supporter.
“The long story is, obviously, more complicated but... Whenever I thought about quitting, whenever I felt like this was too much for me, I'd think about the day when I will patent... something, something that will help me be normal again.” Elena is still smiling at him, but it's softer now, her head cocked a little to the side, her head supported on her hands. She's looking at him with wide eyes, completely focused and interested. “I can stand- well, sit really,” he smiles sadly, a few of the students laugh quietly, “I could be here for weeks, talking to you about the newest discoveries in my field, the stem cell research, the improved wheelchair designs, the frankly Doc-Oc-like prototypes of artificial limbs...” More people laugh this time. Arthur leans forward. “It won't matter,” he says. “It won't matter if you don't know why you're here.”
He sits back again. His skin is crawling, but it's not an uncomfortable sensation; it a muted kind of excitement and pride that makes him feel like he's just straightened up after spending years being hunched over. He catches the blur of the oversized used-teabag-color jacket Gaius is wearing before the door closes, but what he's really looking at is Elena's face, a ghost of a smile still on her lips, but her eyes unfocused and her fingers drumming absently on the leg of her glasses. He knows he can go home tomorrow safe in the certainty that his brief venture into teaching won't be completely forgotten.
~*~
“So what do you plan to do after high school?” Freya asked, closing the biology textbook and packing it away.
“Hm?”
“You know, when you pass your exams. What are you gonna study in university?” She was smiling down at him, a warm and friendly smile she always shared with everyone she met. Arthur liked her. She was always polite and kind and soft-spoken, and somehow, with her, it never felt fake.
“I don't plan on anything,” Arthur replied honestly. She had this effect on him, she made him feel like she wouldn't judge him, like he could be genuine with her. So he was.
“Oh, well that's all right,” she answered with a shrug. “I just thought you would, because you're very smart, you know? So I figured you would continue your education. But that's cool if you don't want to. Do you wanna be an artist or something like that?”
Arthur didn't know how to tell her that he said he didn't plan on anything, he meant that literally. He hadn't thought about any but the immediate future ever since the accident and he sure wasn't going to start now. He couldn't imagine himself in 10 years. Not only in relation to a certain profession or job, but at all. He felt that if he started thinking about that too closely, he wouldn't be able to stop until he thought himself into a depression he couldn't deny anymore. So he didn't think about it.
“Err, no, I... I'm thinking about university. I just don't know what I want,” he lied. He couldn't bring himself to tell Freya the truth this time.
“Oh! Well, you're good at math and stuff. And your dad has a family business, right? You could do economy,” she suggested. Arthur made a face. Crunching numbers for the rest of his life didn't sound like a dream job, no matter the favor it would probably gain him with his father if he suggested taking over the business. Freya laughed. “Okay, not economy then. What about biology? You're very good at it and it's infinitely more interesting!”
“I... I'll think about that.”
~*~
It could be your last chance to see him, he tells himself. He won't notice, he thinks. It doesn't mean anything, it won't change anything, he convinces himself. He turns the doorknob slowly and opens the door. It doesn't creak. He slips inside and closes the door behind him.
The classroom is much smaller than the hall where he taught, with barely enough space for 40 people. There's no microphone, no speakers, no platforms. Every seat is taken, though, two girls are even sharing one chair up front. Arthur licks his lips. This isn't how close he expected to get.
He finally lets his eyes go where they wanted to from the start - front and center, to the source of the calm and steady voice filling the room. The first glimpse is strange - both exhilarating and frightening, not unlike what Arthur imagines a drug-addict experiences at relapse. He lets a soft gasp escape him as Merlin's form comes into focus in front of him.
Merlin is leaning against his desk, slouching forward, his arms crossed over his chest. He doesn't look like a professor, not with those dark jeans, not with his untucked shirt and undone top buttons, not with the burgundy pullover hanging off his shoulder like it's two sizes too wide. He doesn't look as young as Arthur knows him to be, not with his hair long and messily settling against his forehead, or with the dark stubble covering his face.
He doesn't look like the Merlin Arthur remembers (or did he just make that Merlin up, idealizing the picture over the years), he's taller and paler and skinnier and Arthur's stomach turns (shock and regret and desire and memories, so many memories) when he runs his long knobbly fingers through his hair.
He sounds exactly as Arthur remembers, though; his voice is smooth and quiet, but it fills every nook and cranny of the room, it fills Arthur's very bones, and Arthur is immediately hooked, drawn into the world Merlin is painting with his voice, and he can't move, and he can't breathe.
“...hypothesizes that language affects the very way we perceive the world,” Merlin is saying, the words reaching Arthur's ears, but not his brain, unimportant, unnecessary. “But without going to extremes, we can still agree that language and culture are knit tightly together, inseparable and mutually dependent. Which is why it is important to remember that you cannot-“
It feels like hours, the moment in which their eyes meet, the immediate recognition he reads on Merlin's face, followed by a flash of an emotion Arthur doesn't have the time to catch, the shudder that goes through him, the sensation of air being sucked out from the room... And then it's gone. Merlin looks away.
“...teach language without teaching culture. This is part of the reason why Latin is still so popular, the fact that we want to know more about...”
Arthur doesn't wait for Merlin to finish the sentence. He turns around and leaves.
~*~
Morgana handed him the stack of shirts from the dresser. “So how is this even gonna work? Like, do you have a... roommate or something?” she asked.
“Um. I don't really know?” Arthur answered. “Pretty sure a nurse will be visiting me weekly or something. No roommates though, thank god.”
“Yeah, who could stand living with you?” she teased. Arthur rolled his eyes for show. The truth was, he was glad someone was still treating him like a normal person and joking with him.
“Shut up, you'd love to be my roommate!”
“Are you kidding? I can't wait for you to be on your way,” she said. Her voice didn't shake and she was smirking, but Arthur could see she was lying.
She was worried about him. He was worried too. It was a huge change to make, going from spending all his time at home, surrounded by people who knew him, living in an environment he could navigate with his eyes closed to living away from home, where he would have to be a lot more self-sufficient and independent. He wasn't taking the move lightly either. He'd been doing his physiotherapy almost religiously over the year he took off, until he was sure he'd be able to move around on his own without much trouble. He'd started going out more, putting himself in situations that challenged him. It wasn't the easiest thing to do, especially in the beginning, but with a little help from Morgana (who really, mostly just yelled at him until he relented and obeyed her), he pushed himself until he was fairly certain he'd be able to live on his own for most of the year.
In the end, he was happy he'd decided to go on to university. It didn't only force him to start living again, but it made him at least marginally more comfortable with himself.
He went to close his suitcase when Morgana stopped him. “You're forgetting something,” she said as she handed him a plain, wooden picture frame. In it was a photo of the two of them with Arthur's parents in a park where they had a picnic the first weekend after Morgana arrived. The photo itself wasn't a particularly good one - the light was off, ageing them all by at least five years, but more importantly Morgana and Arthur were scowling at each other, while Ygraine was awkwardly trying to hug them both without any apparent preference and Uther was just sort of standing to the side. Morgana had drawn smiles on all of their faces with a sharpie though.
Arthur put the photo in his suitcase quickly, before he could get emotional about it.
~*~
There's a knock on his door. “Coming!” he shouts, looking around for a place to put the tracksuit he sleeps in. Eventually he just, throws it back on the bed. Whoever it is (he'd wager it's Elena, except she doesn't knock), they'll have to be understanding of the fact that he's packing.
He pauses in front of the door to run his fingers through his hair. There's a tea stain on his shirt pocket, he realizes, but it's too late to change his clothes now. He shakes his shoulders to release the stiffness and opens the door.
“Ah, Arthur, I was hoping I'd find you here. Packing?”
“Uh, yes,” Arthur replies. He wheels backwards in an arch. “Please, come in. I should warn you, it's quite a mess.”
“Understandably,” Gaius replies. He carefully folds a jacket and puts it away before sitting on the corner of the bed. “You may have noticed, I decided to check in on your last lecture,” he says.
“I saw.” Arthur is not sure what this visit is all about, but Gaius' tone sounds professional. He hopes it's not some sort of a review, because while he's actually pretty happy with his last lecture, his previous three now seem subpar.
“Arthur...” Gaius leans over, the tips of his fingers pressed together in front of his face. His hands are shaking. “You could be a great teacher,” he says. “With some practice, of course,” he adds with a smirk. “You have this...” he waves a hand in the air, “natural air of authority, leadership about you. People want to listen. And I think you have things to say.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Look, son,” Gaius starts; Arthur barely manages not to flinch at the word, “I've been trying to retire for years and Helena has always found reasons to keep me. I've resorted to feigning dementia, for Pete's sake!” Arthur snorts; he knew he was right from the start. “The truth is, the department is understaffed. Not many people in your particular field want to teach, and I'm sure you can relate to their reasons.” Gaius' eyebrow climbs a little higher. Arthur shrugs complacently; everyone he works with is interested in research, so it's not like he can contradict what Gaius is saying. “But you could be exactly what this university is looking for.”
“Are you offering me a job?” Arthur asks, caught between laughing because this has to be a joke and getting a drink because this might not be a joke after all.
“Eventually,” Gaius replies. “Right now, I'm offering you another lecture or two. Or five. An opportunity to decide if this is for you.”
Arthur rubs a hand over his face. “I'll think about it,” he promises.
“Find me in the morning.”
~*~
part 3: and i know perhaps my heart is farce
~*~