Fic: A Place to Stand
The room is stuffy.
Morgana watches the white specks of paint peeling off the wall behind Arthur’s chair and tries to count how many there are.
Five. Six. Seven. Eight.
Someone on her far left coughs.
Nine. Ten. Eleven.
She wiggles her sock-clad toes against the lightly damp bottom of her trainer, feeling the soft stuffing that stuck out from an old rip.
Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen.
A nurse passes by and she slides her feet under her chair out of the woman’s way.
Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen.
Arthur, who sits across from her, still refuses to meet her eyes, and even if he does, she wouldn’t know what to say.
Eighte-oh forget it.
Morgana picks up a magazine from the hazardously stacked prints in the chair next to hers. The pages are worn, no longer glossy. Winkled. As she turns the page, she swears that she could feel a layer of dust on her finger tips. Coffee stained Prince Charles’ face. Lovely. The colorful words and smiling celebrities are mocking her discomfort.
She flips through the pages, eyes moving through the pictures, but not really paying attention. The sound of a telly hums in the background, along with the clanking of the nearby vending machine. Might be her imagination, but the electrical circuits of the light above are buzzing.
Sighing, Morgana tosses the magazine aside. The silence is not getting any less awkward.
“So,” she says. “Merlin.” Morgana winces at her pathetic attempt at conversation.
Arthur glances up at her for a second before dropping his head back on to his hands.
Great.
So, Morgana does the only thing that she has always done in situation like these: She goes and gets coffee.
To be honest, Morgana doesn’t know what she is doing here. She hadn’t spoken with Arthur in years. Not after his fall-out with Uther. Not after he left for grad school. He didn’t show up at her high school graduation. He didn’t even call when Uther died.
So, to be honest, she doesn’t know who Arthur is anymore.
But Morgana guesses that, in a way, she is still Arthur’s little sister. And despite many assumptions, Arthur is a private person with only a few people close to him. Morgana guesses that she is one of them.
However, it has been years, and Morgana herself has forgotten how to be Arthur’s little sister. She isn’t little anymore. Not after Uther’s death. Not after Arthur’s disappearance. Not after she dropped out of college. And certainly not now.
She didn’t believe it at first, when she picked up her phone at 1:00 in the morning and was greeted with silence. She almost hung up, but stopped when a soft “Hello?” came from the other end. She couldn’t believe it when Arthur called her, telling her that he was in the hospital. Most of all, she couldn’t believe it when she promptly left her flat, after the call, in her pajama bottom and The Red Hot Chili Peppers tee to see her brother because his boyfriend is in the emergency room after a nasty car accident.
Arthur looks like shit. He has scratches and bruises everywhere, and the nasty purple thing above his left eye does not seem that friendly either. The worn T-shirt that he is wearing, which Morgana quickly recognizes as his favorite, is dampened with sweat and drying blood.
“Coffee?” Morgana offers. It’s pretty damn hard to find coffee in this run-down hospital, so the prat better take it.
“Thanks,” Arthur replies, grabbing the steaming Styrofoam cup from her. The corner of his mouth rise briefly, but the smile doesn’t reach his eyes.
“The doctor said that Merlin would be fine.”
“Ah.”
They both sit in more silence.
“Are you ok with it?” Arthur asks after a while, and Morgana raises her eyebrows in confusion.
“With what?” Morgana pauses for a moment. “I don’t mind being here.”
“That’s good,” Arthur nods slowly. “But, are you still ok now with…you know…everything…life?”
She shrugs. “I guess.”
More silence.
“Are you still mad about,” Arthur swallows, “me and…you know….” He gestures vaguely with his hands.
Oh. That.
Morgana doesn’t know what to say. Is she okay with Arthur walking out of her life for the past six years? Is she okay with Arthur hiding things from her as if she is a stranger to him?
She doesn’t even know who Arthur is anymore.
Before Morgana could answer, however, a commotion disrupts her thoughts.
Suddenly, the emergency room doors burst open. White coats flutter everywhere down the corridor to and from the room.
“What’s going on?”
They roll some kind of machine down to the room. Arthur stands up, trying to grab one of the white coat, trying to find some answers but can’t. He struggles desperately at the torrent of white coats in vain, but they ignore him.
Morgana swallows.
“Mr. Pendragon?” A white coat approaches them. Morgana resists the urge to flinch. The last white coat that she saw told her Uther had died. The previous white coat told her that her mother would never wake up again.
Morgana couldn’t hear a word that the white coat said. The world is in a whirl, spinning in turns of white and gray and fluorescent blue, and Morgana shakes her head to clear it. She takes slow, deep breaths. This isn’t Uther nor her mother. When Morgana gets a grip of herself, she realizes that her shirt is damped with cold sweat, and her hands are bony white as they stretch tight over the armrest of her chair.
“Arthur?” Morgana asks softly. The white coat is saying something else, but she ignores him. For a second, she thinks that there is something wrong with her eyes because her brother’s outline looks blurry. It takes Morgana a while to realize that Arthur is shaking and she is crying. She tries to rise from her chair, but nausea pushes her back.
Morgana doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t know what to say or how to stand up or how to comfort the brother who she doesn’t really know. She doesn’t know who Merlin is, or exactly how much he means to Arthur; she can only imagine how devastated Arthur must feel right now. She doesn’t know anything and the world is spinning and she just wants it to stop. Morgana just wants everything to stop moving. She just wants everything back the way it was, when Uther and her mother were still alive. When Arthur was still a part of her life. When she was still young and did not drop out of college. When she was still sixteen and did not know, yet, the pain of loss.
Morgana didn’t ask to grow up, and she knew Arthur didn’t either. She should be mad at Arthur, who is the brother she thought she had lost. Morgana could sit in her chair: She could anchor herself away from Arthur and away from the spinning world-like she had always done by running away when things got tough-when Uther’s death was too much and when college was too much. She could turn the other way and Arthur would remain outside of her life. She could turn the other way and deny the brother who she thought wasn’t her brother anymore.
But, the world will always be moving, and if she remains anchored to her chair, Arthur will have to face it alone. She remembers the young boy who comforted her when her mother died, who bought her a glass of orange juice and a bandage when she skinned her knees playing tag, who taught her how to ride a bike and how to play a prank on Tommy-the-next-door-neighbor without getting caught. She remembers the teen who taught her how to swear and tutored her in math. She remembers Arthur who is her brother. Morgana didn’t ask to grow up, and she knew Arthur didn’t either. But they both have to. She has to.
So, taking a deep breath, Morgana lets go of her anchor and pushes herself off the chair. The spinning world almost pulls her back to where she was, but she rushes forward and clutches Arthur’s arm. Arthur turns to her, his eyes fill with just as much confusion as hers. They cling to each other as their emotional world collapses around them in pieces.
Arthur is shaking, and Morgana pats his back, knowing that the dampness on the back of her shirt is his tears. She pats his back and waits, waits until they can build their world whole again. She waits, because she knows that this is her place to stand.
Part 2.