FIC: It's not the end of the world (but you can see it from here) (Merlin, 3/6)
Continued from Part 2
2011
He had not allowed himself much in the way of emotion for over a year now, lest the terrifying reality render him useless to his country. Morgana still raged at King and Parliament alike on a daily basis. Arthur supposed it was her way of coping. For his part, he was still waiting for Bruce Willis and Dennis Quaid to show up.
Where Morgana argued passionately for finding a way to save more people or telling the public and letting them try to save themselves, Arthur found himself deep in dirtier business: the cold, practical choices of which of his countrymen were worthy of earthly salvation. It had become his job to sift through the reports and recommendations of the secret committees established to examine the genetics, abilities, and finances of all British citizens who might have something to contribute to the eventual rebuilding of the world.
He compiled list after list and sent them on to Parliament to review for what would soon become the most important passenger manifest in the history of the world. In between the various geniuses and national treasures, he subtly inserted names of more ordinary people who meant something to him.
It was simple enough to include Merlin’s mentor Gaius amongst the physicians; he was well respected and had served in the military with the King and Prime Minister. Leon managed to secure a service position aboard the ark, and Arthur had sent him off to the building site in China with his blessing and great relief.
Others were not as lucky. The lists always came back with lines drawn through name after name, and too often those names sent a new stab of pain through Arthur’s heart. Merlin’s mother had been one of those names, but she died of a heart attack before Arthur could do anything about it. He sent a glorious display of lilies to the funeral and tried not to wonder if Merlin needed him.
The one constant every time was Merlin’s name there right under his own. Once, the lists had come back with question marks next to Merlin and Gwen’s names. In a fury, Arthur sent them back with exclamation points, then called the Prime Minister’s private line to make sure that whoever had gotten happy with their pen learned their place very quickly.
Uther had called him in one afternoon on the pretext of discussing the upcoming Olympic Games, slated to be the last in history. Arthur was still on the organizing committee, though where once he had thrown himself into the planning with boyish enthusiasm, it now felt like a stilted puppet show, bread and circuses for the plebes while the patricians made their quiet plans to ditch the sinking ship.
He stood up and turned to go when he was done briefing Uther on the plans for the closing ceremonies. "Arthur," his father called before he reached the door, and he turned around. "I wanted you to know that your unit has been recalled from Afghanistan."
Arthur met his father’s neutral gaze with a surprised look.
"They’ll be briefed into the plan, then placed back under your command for the duration of the... for the duration," Uther said.
Arthur just shook his head. "Why?"
"Because we will need security for the government, and your men are the best."
"How do you even know that?" Arthur challenged, though of course his men were the pride of Britain in his eyes. "You’ve barely met any of them."
Uther gave a weary sigh. "I know because you are their leader. You trained them, and thus there can be no better."
And with those few words, all the months of repression nearly came unravelled then and there. Arthur could only nod, pulling himself to attention for a moment before escaping to compose himself. His men arrived the next week: stolid Pellinor, brave Owain, joyful Gawain, dependable Kay, and Galahad, that manic-depressive bastard.
Not long after that, the lists suddenly became final. A politely detached bureaucrat showed up at Clarence House late one evening, bearing two red passes and two peculiar cell phones. His heart pounded with relief and anxiety.
It was time to go see Merlin again.
***
When Arthur arrived at the MSF camp, he could see little through the cloud of dust stirred up by the rotors of the helicopter. As it cleared, he saw the cluster of huts and trailers and vehicles, a few more of each than there had been the last time he and Merlin had come for a publicity stop, but still familiar enough to ache if he could allow himself to feel anything.
A few familiar faces gaped up at him as he stepped out of the chopper, leaving Owain and Pellinor to grapple with the boxes of supplies he had brought to explain his presence. He wished he could avoid it altogether. Arthur had become skilled at conversing with people who had no idea that they and everyone they knew were going to be dead in a year’s time, but it gnawed away a little more of his soul every time.
"Prince Arthur, what a fantastic surprise!" Another familiar, though unexpected face emerged from the crowd--Dr. Ector Mburu, whom Arthur had first gotten to know through Merlin’s stories and later in person when Arthur had become more involved with the work.
"Ector, always fantastic to see you, too." He exchanged a back-pounding embrace with Ector, who had always reminded Arthur of a more frenetic, but equally bossy version of Merlin himself. "What are you doing in South Africa? I thought you were in Mali."
"They asked me to come down and consult about a cholera outbreak that’s starting to spread. Nasty business, but I can spare a few minutes if you’ll sit down and talk football with me." Ector pounded Arthur’s back one more time before nodding towards something behind him. "Though I assume you’re here to see Merlin, of course."
He turned to see Merlin and Lancelot coming around the corner of the main hospital tent. He had thought he was prepared to see Merlin again, but when Merlin looked at him with wide eyes and the start of a smile, Arthur realized that was almost absurdly untrue.
It did not matter. He could feel the weight of what he carried in his pocket, and it outweighed the pounding of his heart and every other consideration. He nodded curtly to Lancelot, then addressed Merlin. "I need to talk to you."
"Sure," Merlin replied, his welcoming smile turning to wariness. It stung, even if Arthur knew it was more justified than Merlin could imagine.
"In private," he said.
"Okay," Merlin said slowly. "We could go to my-"
"No." Arthur jerked his head toward the outskirts of the camp, past where the helicopter was idling. "It won’t take long."
Merlin stepped to Arthur’s side. Arthur’s hand automatically came up the back of Merlin’s neck. He left it there past the first shock of contact, using it to steer Merlin out to where they were still in sight of the camp, but well out of earshot.
"What’s going on, Arthur?" Merlin said, though he had long since given up the right to address Arthur by his Christian name.
Nor did he resist Arthur’s touch, letting Arthur pull him firmly against his shoulder in a parody of their old embraces. Merlin’s face was hidden from any observers as Arthur spoke low and careful into his ear, telling him about the earth, the water, and the arks.
He spared nothing; no grim detail of the preparations, making certain Merlin would believe him. He held on tight as Merlin stiffened and tried to jerk away, even after he had finished speaking.
"You cannot tell anyone," he said as Merlin shook against his neck. "Not anyone, on pain of death."
"Then why did you tell me?" Merlin’s voice was rough and choked. "Is this some kind of stupid joke, Arthur? To get me back for how I left?"
Arthur would gladly take such pettiness over the truth. "No. This isn’t a joke. You need to believe that."
"Then why would you tell me?"
"Because I was given the choice to take one person in the entire world with me on the ark, and I am choosing you."
Merlin did pull away at that, and Arthur let him. His mouth opened and closed a few times, and he blinked rapidly. "Of course they give any royal prat a seat. But why me?"
"Don’t worry, I’m not asking for anything from you in return," Arthur said quietly. "It is my own sorry situation that I can’t imagine a world without you in it. So, there it is."
"Arthur," Merlin started to say, stepping in closer again, but Arthur raised a hand to his chest to stop him.
"You’re going to need this." He pulled the cell phone out of his pocket, punched in the code, and handed it to Merlin. "Put your thumb on the pad."
Merlin obeyed, though it took two attempts to still the shaking of his hand. "What is it?"
"It’s a phone, Merlin, what does it look like?" Arthur shook his head in exasperation. "Never, ever let it off your person. There’s nowhere it won’t get a signal, and only your thumbprint can activate it."
"It’s-you’ll call when it’s-" Merlin swallowed hard and closed his eyes before he could speak. "When it’s going to happen."
"When it’s time, it will go off with a text telling you it’s time to board," Arthur said and couldn’t stop himself from reaching out to squeeze Merlin’s shoulders. "That’s when I’ll come for you. The phone will tell me where you are. Be ready, we won’t have much time."
Merlin shook his head. "But what about everyone else? What about Lance and Ector? What about all the people here?"
"I can’t help them, Merlin." His voice was too harsh, making Merlin flinch, but he couldn’t help it. He had known Merlin would ask this, as though the same thoughts had not been eating at Arthur’s every waking moment. "I can only help you. The best way you can help them is to tell them absolutely nothing."
"How can you say that?" Merlin demanded. "How can I just go back and look at them and accept that they’re all going to die?"
"They’ll die a lot sooner if you say anything." Arthur shook him a little, desperate to get the point across. "That’s all you can do for any of them."
Merlin just shook his head. "I won’t say anything now, but we have to do something."
"We?" Arthur repeated in disbelief.
"There’s a cave system not too far from here. I can start moving some food and medical supplies there-don’t worry, I’m sneaky, nobody will see." As Arthur watched in awe, Merlin reached full inspired babble mode, as though everything would be fine now that Merlin had a plan. "Once this thing goes off, I should have enough time to get everyone down there before anything happens. It won’t matter what I tell them then, right? They’ll have a chance, right?"
"Right," Arthur agreed faintly. He supposed they would have as good a chance there as anywhere, and if anyone could bend the laws of nature to his will, it was Merlin.
At the very least, he knew from experience that having something to do might keep Merlin from going mad.
"Are you all right?" he asked. "If you need time to get yourself together, I can take you into town for some supplies. I brought a good supply of some of the vaccines you need, but I know you can always use more."
Merlin turned and looked at the helicopter, where Owain and Pellinor were still unloading crates. He shook his head slowly before turning back to Arthur. "Does it even matter now?"
Arthur had to force himself to answer that question nearly every day. "Yes," he said. "Everything you do from this moment on matters more than anything else you’ve done before."
"Does anyone actually buy that line?" Merin gave a short laugh of disbelief. "Royalty never stops being ridiculous, does it?"
"Wasn’t that why you left me in the first place?"
He regretted the words at once, but Merlin just stepped closer again and gave a little tug to the edges of Arthur’s jacket. "Guess we weren’t meant to make things easy on each other. But... thanks."
Then he leaned forward and brushed his lips softly against Arthur’s. For a moment, Arthur let it happen, caught between shock and bliss. He snapped out of it a second later and took a jerking step back.
"Don’t," he said, voice rasping in his throat. "I told you, I expect nothing from you except your silence."
Merlin took a step back himself, rubbing a hand over his face. "Sorry. I’ve no right anymore, I know. Sorry. God, bad timing, right?"
Arthur shrugged helplessly. End of the world, his soldiers and a slew of people not a hundred yards away-and not to mention damned Lancelot, waiting for Merlin to come back to him.
"When you find good timing, you let me know," he said at last and let himself touch Merlin one more time on the shoulder. "Trust me, take a few minutes before you try to talk to anyone. I’ll be a distraction for a while."
Then he jogged back toward the camp and the promised football chat with Ector Mburu.
***
2007
The first time he had waited for a phone to ring after seeing Merlin, circumstances had been substantially different. His body had still been humming with satiation, his heart peaceful with the certainty that Merlin would not let too long pass without finding a way to contact him.
He had not been expecting Merlin to show up literally on his doorstep a few weeks after their encounter, but he felt rather smug about it when the guard called to ask about the somewhat odd young man who had turned up at the gate demanding to see the prince. "Send him to me," he said, then spent the next five minutes arranging himself in a nonchalant pose.
"This place is ridiculous," Merlin exclaimed fifteen minutes after that when he burst into Arthur’s private apartments, waving a manila envelope in an agitated manner for emphasis.
Behind him, Leon quirked a smile. "I found him wandering through the portrait hall, sir. I believe his escort misplaced him."
"Again," Merlin added, adorably sour as if the fault was not his for poking around royal residences where he was not supposed to be.
"Thank you, Leon," Arthur said and waited for the door to close behind him before he raised his eyebrows at Merlin. "I admit, I rather expected a phone call first, but you always do surprise me, Merlin."
"I lost your number." When Arthur’s jaw dropped a little, Merlin shrugged. "What, did you think I was going to have it plated in gold? Anyway, I had to come to get this cleared up."
"Get what cleared up?" Arthur did not really care. He prowled toward Merlin, judging the best angle to slide right into kissing.
Instead he found himself with the manila folder planted firmly in his chest and Merlin’s lips scowling at an unacceptable distance from his.
"There," Merlin said as though it were all perfectly self evident and sane. "Those are my test results, full blood panel, completely clean."
Oh. That was what he was on about. Arthur bit back a grin as he peeled the envelope off his chest and tossed it onto his desk. "I wasn’t worried. I had your complete MSF file pulled right after you left, including your full health records."
"What?" Lacking any other envelopes, Merlin poked an accusing finger into Arthur’s chest. "You can’t just go around looking at other people’s health records. There’s such a thing as privacy, you know."
"And yet your employer was strangely fine with giving up your privacy in exchange for my money." Arthur shook his head in mock sadness. "What a world we live in."
Merlin just gave him a dirty look. "I want to see yours, then. Every damn panel you’ve ever had, and I’m sure there have been plenty."
"Sorry, state secret." Arthur stepped forward until he could slip his hands around Merlin’s waist, letting his fingers toy with the waistband of his trousers. "But I promise you, I am perfectly clean and healthy in every respect."
"I just didn’t want you to think I do that kind of thing." Merlin leaned into him almost imperceptibly. "I mean, I hand out HIV meds every day. And condoms, lots of them. I have a whole crate of them back at the site."
"But not with you?" Arthur smiled and pressed his cheek to Merlin’s to feel the heat of his blush. He liked the fact that Merlin did not carry condoms around with him. He liked it very much.
"It’s not like I get a lot of time to pull." Merlin pulled back to frown at Arthur. "But then here we were. And it just didn’t matter."
"No," Arthur agreed, keeping his fingers hooked in Merlin’s belt. "And it still doesn’t. I still don’t have any condoms, either, but I was just wondering whether I should bend you over the desk or take you right to bed."
A quarter hour later, he was pressed against Merlin’s naked back and inside his naked backside, sweaty and sated. Merlin was panting, hands splayed on the desk on either side of his stupid envelope; Arthur had successfully made him come all over it.
"You horrible slag, you," he teased with a kiss to Merlin’s ear.
"You know what they say," Merlin replied, cheerful and breathless. "Great slag equals great shag."
"Nobody says that, Merlin," Arthur scolded, then took Merlin to bed anyway.
After that, there was no question of Merlin going back to Africa. Given his success and newfound friendship with the prince, MSF had been more than happy to give Merlin a London-based fundraising position. Arthur had quietly made sure it paid enough for the Kensington flat that had once belonged to one of his mother’s ladies-in-waiting.
They had conducted their affair right under the noses of the palace and the press. Even Uther had commented that his new friendship seemed to have finally settled him. The world could not have been more to Arthur’s liking, and he had every confidence it would go on forever.
***
As the last year of the world drew near, Arthur stopped sleeping more than a couple of fitful hours each night. There was so much to do in so little time. And the world had so little time left he could hardly bear to miss any of it.
He had just dozed off when the tap came on his bedroom door. Rubbing his eyes, he started to struggle out of the covers-then startled when the door started to open without any word from him. No one ever came into his room, not even-
"Arthur? Are you awake?" Morgana called from the cracked door.
"What?" he said stupidly. They had shared a residence for as long as Arthur had been alive, but she had never been in his bedroom, nor he in hers.
She looked around with an air of bemusement as she came in, studying whatever secrets she found revealed in the faint moonlight. "I’m sorry to wake you, but it’s important."
He managed to sit up and blink at her through gritty eyes. "Morgana? What’s going on?"
She sat down on the edge of his bed and even in the dim light he could see the gleam in her eyes as she looked at him silently for a long moment. She stirred finally, reaching into her jacket and pulling out a thick envelope. "I need you to promise me something, Arthur."
Arthur took the envelope without looking at it, still staring at his sister. "Anything, Moggy," he said with unaccustomed gentleness. "You know that."
Morgana smiled, then reached out and squeezed his hand. "Promise me that you’ll take care of Gwen. Whatever happens to me, make sure she gets on that ark."
He frowned at her in confusion as she stood up again. "Of course, but Morgana, nothing’s-"
Then a sudden fear came over him, and he tore open the envelope. Two red cards and one familiar mobile fell into his hand.
"Morgana!" he yelled, but she was already gone.
It took him two minutes to get trousers, shirt, and shoes on, five more to question the night guard about where Morgana had gone, get in his car and go after her. He knew even as he drove that there was little chance of finding her before she committed whatever act of idiocy she had planned.
After an hour, he had covered most of Westminster and Kensington while trying her phone repeatedly, then finally calling Pellinor and having him roust out the rest of their company to join the search. Desperation finally drove him through the gates of Buckingham Palace, surprising a number of guards-as well as the King.
Uther and Morgana had always had a difficult relationship, exacerbated by their profound differences regarding the global secrecy around coming events. But Uther was the only father Morgana remembered, and he had always had more influence over her than anyone else.
"I’m afraid Morgana is about to do something incredibly stupid," he told a bleary-eyed Uther without preamble as he strode into the royal bedroom. "She isn’t answering her phone, and I can’t find her."
Uther ran his hand through his hair, only making himself look more rumpled. "Arthur, what in the world are you on about?"
Arthur pulled the extra ark pager from his pocket and tossed it onto the coverlet. "She came into my room an hour ago. She made me promise to take care of Guinevere, and she gave me that, along with her boarding pass and Gwen’s."
"Shit." Uther swung his legs out of bed. "I believe I know whom she is with, and I can figure out where they are going. Leave this to me, Arthur."
"Father, I can-"
"Go back to bed, Arthur." Uther stood and gripped his shoulder. "You’ve done well. Leave Morgana to me now."
Arthur nodded reluctantly and left. On the way back to Clarence House, he could only think of how much he and Morgana had not know about each other. She had known nothing about Merlin until the end, and they had never discussed it since. If she had a lover, he had not known it, either.
Nor had he known that Morgana had gone so much deeper into her obsession with disclosing the conspiracy of the arks than Arthur had even guessed. Deep enough that she had given over her boarding pass and best friend to him and disappeared into the night.
He fell into bed and nightmares of fire and water.
Dawn light had just begun to filter into his room when he woke to a pounding on the door. He was still squinting when the door flew open without his leave for an unprecedented second time in one night.
"Your Highness? Arthur, Arthur, wake up, oh, God, wake up."
He could count on his fingers the number of times Gwen had called him Arthur and still have fingers left over for a variety of rude gestures. Nor had he heard that kind of fear in her voice since he had gone with Morgana to break the secret to her. He bolted upright in alarm. "Gwen?"
Gwen was already in the room as Arthur got out of bed, trying to avert her eyes even though he was still fully dressed from earlier. She forgot any thoughts of propriety a second later, distracted by her own distress as she fumbled for the remote control to Arthur’s television.
"-same tunnel that claimed the life of her mother, Queen Ygraine, nearly thirty years ago. The body of BBC investigative journalist Alberto Tauren was also found by the car. There were no eye witnesses to the crash, but Tauren‘s car was stopped several metres behind the wreck, leading to speculation that Tauren had attempted to aid the Lady Morgana and Dr. Alvarr and was himself caught in the conflagration."
Gwen’s hands shook so hard that the remote flew out of her hand, hit one of the bedposts, and thudded to the floor. Instinctively, Arthur wrapped his arms around her and pulled her face against his chest as if he could protect her from the live image of the still-burning wreckage. "Jesus, Mogs," he whispered over Gwen’s curls.
"She was going to tell, wasn’t she?" Gwen said into his shirt. "I begged her not to, but she said it wasn’t right to keep it a secret."
"I know," he said. So it was John Alvarr who was Morgana’s partner, the conspiracy within the conspiracy. A Nobel-winning physicist and the stepdaughter of the King would have made for a compelling and believable interview, if they had made it.
"She said maybe they could figure out how to save more people. Or even if they couldn’t, everyone-" Gwen’s voice caught, and her shoulders began to shake. "Everyone had the right to meet their destiny as they saw fit."
"Like she did," Arthur muttered, thinking of the boarding passes he had locked away with his own and Merlin’s.
He held Gwen as his shirt front soaked hot with her tears, watching the television coverage of his sister’s assassination over Gwen’s head. Tears burned his eyes, but did not fall. Somehow, he thought Morgana would sneer at the notion of grieving so much for one death when there were so many more to come.
But she was his sister.
When Gwen started to sag against him with exhaustion, he lifted her up and laid her in his bed. She was asleep before he had her settled, and she would be safe from any prying eyes here for as long as she needed.
Arthur dressed himself again, this time in a manner befitting a prince. He clicked off the television set and called for a car to take him to the palace.
Though the city was just stirring into another cold November morning, stunned Londoners were already laying flowers and notes outside Clarence House. Arthur watched through the tinted glass as people he had never met wept for his sister, then turned and stared at the car as though they could see him. He jumped when a woman pressed herself against his window, moaning her grief.
"It was the same when your mum died, God rest her soul, Highness," said Lionel from the driver seat. He had certainly been with the family long enough to remember. "And the people loved our poor lass just about as much."
"I don’t think I knew," Arthur murmured, too low for Lionel to hear.
The scene was even worse at Buckingham. Two guards had to come out and clear the flowers before the car could drive through the gate. "Stop at the front entrance, Lionel," Arthur said. "The people need to see me."
Lionel frowned at him in the rear-view mirror, but had known Arthur long enough not to say anything. He stopped the car in full view of the mourners and news cameras, then got out to open Arthur’s door.
Arthur stepped out to the flash of cameras, far off but close enough with their lenses. A ragged cheer went up from the people gathering at the fence with their candles and flowers. He gave a single, grave nod to them and lifted his hand in silent thanks before walking around the car and striding calmly inside.
Once out of public view, he walked faster, not stopping to speak with any of the shocked and horrified staff, but occasionally accepting the touch of their hands on his arms as he passed. He made straight for the private residence and one particular private office.
He slammed the door open without bothering to knock. The television was on, as he had known it would be, but Uther was not watching it. As Arthur stormed in, the King kept his bowed head resting on his clasped hands. The door slammed shut again.
"Did you do this?" Arthur demanded with deadly quiet. The reporter was now describing the picture of Morgana’s body being extracted from the wreckage of her car.
Uther did not react. The television droned on. After a minute, Arthur walked forward, picked up a heavy stone paperweight from his father’s desk, and hurled it through the television screen.
"I said, did you fucking do this?" Arthur yelled as the television sparked and droned down to silence.
His father finally looked up, eyes reddened and desolate. Arthur searched for guilt within the grief, but his own was too strong. "Arthur. Morgana was-"
"I fucking know what she was," Arthur said, then stalked around the desk, seized the arms of Uther’s chair, and slammed him back into the bookcase behind him. "Tell me the truth. Did you have my sister murdered?"
"No! My God, Arthur, how could you think I would do that?" Uther did not fight him, just looked up at his son with a combination of fear and pity that made Arthur feel sick. "I tracked her down, but there was no time. They had already made contact with Tauren, and after that there were only minutes left. There was no time."
Arthur staggered back against the desk. "No time," he mumbled. Time had become the most precious commodity in the world, and it was the one thing he could not give Morgana back. His knees gave out and he slid down to the floor, all his power gone with his fury.
Uther reached out and put his hands on Arthur’s shoulders. "Arthur. Morgana may not have been my blood, but she was my daughter. I would have done anything I could to save her from her madness, no matter how far she had gone."
"They killed her where Mother died." He looked up at his father, feeling like a small child begging for answers.
"It was a message to me. Even royalty is not above the consequences of breaking the trust." Uther bowed his head again. "Arthur, swear to me that you won’t follow her example."
It would be the one fitting tribute he could give to her. He could walk out right now into the sea of lenses outside and tell them everything. They could kill him, but not fast enough. Everyone would hear him, and someone would believe.
But then who would take care of Gwen-and Merlin? With Morgana and Arthur both dead, there would be no reason to let them keep their tickets, and they would die with the rest of the world. Even without his unwitting promise to Morgana, he could not allow that to happen.
"I swear," he said and buried his face against his knees until he stopped shaking. It took a long time.
***
Part 4
2011
He had not allowed himself much in the way of emotion for over a year now, lest the terrifying reality render him useless to his country. Morgana still raged at King and Parliament alike on a daily basis. Arthur supposed it was her way of coping. For his part, he was still waiting for Bruce Willis and Dennis Quaid to show up.
Where Morgana argued passionately for finding a way to save more people or telling the public and letting them try to save themselves, Arthur found himself deep in dirtier business: the cold, practical choices of which of his countrymen were worthy of earthly salvation. It had become his job to sift through the reports and recommendations of the secret committees established to examine the genetics, abilities, and finances of all British citizens who might have something to contribute to the eventual rebuilding of the world.
He compiled list after list and sent them on to Parliament to review for what would soon become the most important passenger manifest in the history of the world. In between the various geniuses and national treasures, he subtly inserted names of more ordinary people who meant something to him.
It was simple enough to include Merlin’s mentor Gaius amongst the physicians; he was well respected and had served in the military with the King and Prime Minister. Leon managed to secure a service position aboard the ark, and Arthur had sent him off to the building site in China with his blessing and great relief.
Others were not as lucky. The lists always came back with lines drawn through name after name, and too often those names sent a new stab of pain through Arthur’s heart. Merlin’s mother had been one of those names, but she died of a heart attack before Arthur could do anything about it. He sent a glorious display of lilies to the funeral and tried not to wonder if Merlin needed him.
The one constant every time was Merlin’s name there right under his own. Once, the lists had come back with question marks next to Merlin and Gwen’s names. In a fury, Arthur sent them back with exclamation points, then called the Prime Minister’s private line to make sure that whoever had gotten happy with their pen learned their place very quickly.
Uther had called him in one afternoon on the pretext of discussing the upcoming Olympic Games, slated to be the last in history. Arthur was still on the organizing committee, though where once he had thrown himself into the planning with boyish enthusiasm, it now felt like a stilted puppet show, bread and circuses for the plebes while the patricians made their quiet plans to ditch the sinking ship.
He stood up and turned to go when he was done briefing Uther on the plans for the closing ceremonies. "Arthur," his father called before he reached the door, and he turned around. "I wanted you to know that your unit has been recalled from Afghanistan."
Arthur met his father’s neutral gaze with a surprised look.
"They’ll be briefed into the plan, then placed back under your command for the duration of the... for the duration," Uther said.
Arthur just shook his head. "Why?"
"Because we will need security for the government, and your men are the best."
"How do you even know that?" Arthur challenged, though of course his men were the pride of Britain in his eyes. "You’ve barely met any of them."
Uther gave a weary sigh. "I know because you are their leader. You trained them, and thus there can be no better."
And with those few words, all the months of repression nearly came unravelled then and there. Arthur could only nod, pulling himself to attention for a moment before escaping to compose himself. His men arrived the next week: stolid Pellinor, brave Owain, joyful Gawain, dependable Kay, and Galahad, that manic-depressive bastard.
Not long after that, the lists suddenly became final. A politely detached bureaucrat showed up at Clarence House late one evening, bearing two red passes and two peculiar cell phones. His heart pounded with relief and anxiety.
It was time to go see Merlin again.
***
When Arthur arrived at the MSF camp, he could see little through the cloud of dust stirred up by the rotors of the helicopter. As it cleared, he saw the cluster of huts and trailers and vehicles, a few more of each than there had been the last time he and Merlin had come for a publicity stop, but still familiar enough to ache if he could allow himself to feel anything.
A few familiar faces gaped up at him as he stepped out of the chopper, leaving Owain and Pellinor to grapple with the boxes of supplies he had brought to explain his presence. He wished he could avoid it altogether. Arthur had become skilled at conversing with people who had no idea that they and everyone they knew were going to be dead in a year’s time, but it gnawed away a little more of his soul every time.
"Prince Arthur, what a fantastic surprise!" Another familiar, though unexpected face emerged from the crowd--Dr. Ector Mburu, whom Arthur had first gotten to know through Merlin’s stories and later in person when Arthur had become more involved with the work.
"Ector, always fantastic to see you, too." He exchanged a back-pounding embrace with Ector, who had always reminded Arthur of a more frenetic, but equally bossy version of Merlin himself. "What are you doing in South Africa? I thought you were in Mali."
"They asked me to come down and consult about a cholera outbreak that’s starting to spread. Nasty business, but I can spare a few minutes if you’ll sit down and talk football with me." Ector pounded Arthur’s back one more time before nodding towards something behind him. "Though I assume you’re here to see Merlin, of course."
He turned to see Merlin and Lancelot coming around the corner of the main hospital tent. He had thought he was prepared to see Merlin again, but when Merlin looked at him with wide eyes and the start of a smile, Arthur realized that was almost absurdly untrue.
It did not matter. He could feel the weight of what he carried in his pocket, and it outweighed the pounding of his heart and every other consideration. He nodded curtly to Lancelot, then addressed Merlin. "I need to talk to you."
"Sure," Merlin replied, his welcoming smile turning to wariness. It stung, even if Arthur knew it was more justified than Merlin could imagine.
"In private," he said.
"Okay," Merlin said slowly. "We could go to my-"
"No." Arthur jerked his head toward the outskirts of the camp, past where the helicopter was idling. "It won’t take long."
Merlin stepped to Arthur’s side. Arthur’s hand automatically came up the back of Merlin’s neck. He left it there past the first shock of contact, using it to steer Merlin out to where they were still in sight of the camp, but well out of earshot.
"What’s going on, Arthur?" Merlin said, though he had long since given up the right to address Arthur by his Christian name.
Nor did he resist Arthur’s touch, letting Arthur pull him firmly against his shoulder in a parody of their old embraces. Merlin’s face was hidden from any observers as Arthur spoke low and careful into his ear, telling him about the earth, the water, and the arks.
He spared nothing; no grim detail of the preparations, making certain Merlin would believe him. He held on tight as Merlin stiffened and tried to jerk away, even after he had finished speaking.
"You cannot tell anyone," he said as Merlin shook against his neck. "Not anyone, on pain of death."
"Then why did you tell me?" Merlin’s voice was rough and choked. "Is this some kind of stupid joke, Arthur? To get me back for how I left?"
Arthur would gladly take such pettiness over the truth. "No. This isn’t a joke. You need to believe that."
"Then why would you tell me?"
"Because I was given the choice to take one person in the entire world with me on the ark, and I am choosing you."
Merlin did pull away at that, and Arthur let him. His mouth opened and closed a few times, and he blinked rapidly. "Of course they give any royal prat a seat. But why me?"
"Don’t worry, I’m not asking for anything from you in return," Arthur said quietly. "It is my own sorry situation that I can’t imagine a world without you in it. So, there it is."
"Arthur," Merlin started to say, stepping in closer again, but Arthur raised a hand to his chest to stop him.
"You’re going to need this." He pulled the cell phone out of his pocket, punched in the code, and handed it to Merlin. "Put your thumb on the pad."
Merlin obeyed, though it took two attempts to still the shaking of his hand. "What is it?"
"It’s a phone, Merlin, what does it look like?" Arthur shook his head in exasperation. "Never, ever let it off your person. There’s nowhere it won’t get a signal, and only your thumbprint can activate it."
"It’s-you’ll call when it’s-" Merlin swallowed hard and closed his eyes before he could speak. "When it’s going to happen."
"When it’s time, it will go off with a text telling you it’s time to board," Arthur said and couldn’t stop himself from reaching out to squeeze Merlin’s shoulders. "That’s when I’ll come for you. The phone will tell me where you are. Be ready, we won’t have much time."
Merlin shook his head. "But what about everyone else? What about Lance and Ector? What about all the people here?"
"I can’t help them, Merlin." His voice was too harsh, making Merlin flinch, but he couldn’t help it. He had known Merlin would ask this, as though the same thoughts had not been eating at Arthur’s every waking moment. "I can only help you. The best way you can help them is to tell them absolutely nothing."
"How can you say that?" Merlin demanded. "How can I just go back and look at them and accept that they’re all going to die?"
"They’ll die a lot sooner if you say anything." Arthur shook him a little, desperate to get the point across. "That’s all you can do for any of them."
Merlin just shook his head. "I won’t say anything now, but we have to do something."
"We?" Arthur repeated in disbelief.
"There’s a cave system not too far from here. I can start moving some food and medical supplies there-don’t worry, I’m sneaky, nobody will see." As Arthur watched in awe, Merlin reached full inspired babble mode, as though everything would be fine now that Merlin had a plan. "Once this thing goes off, I should have enough time to get everyone down there before anything happens. It won’t matter what I tell them then, right? They’ll have a chance, right?"
"Right," Arthur agreed faintly. He supposed they would have as good a chance there as anywhere, and if anyone could bend the laws of nature to his will, it was Merlin.
At the very least, he knew from experience that having something to do might keep Merlin from going mad.
"Are you all right?" he asked. "If you need time to get yourself together, I can take you into town for some supplies. I brought a good supply of some of the vaccines you need, but I know you can always use more."
Merlin turned and looked at the helicopter, where Owain and Pellinor were still unloading crates. He shook his head slowly before turning back to Arthur. "Does it even matter now?"
Arthur had to force himself to answer that question nearly every day. "Yes," he said. "Everything you do from this moment on matters more than anything else you’ve done before."
"Does anyone actually buy that line?" Merin gave a short laugh of disbelief. "Royalty never stops being ridiculous, does it?"
"Wasn’t that why you left me in the first place?"
He regretted the words at once, but Merlin just stepped closer again and gave a little tug to the edges of Arthur’s jacket. "Guess we weren’t meant to make things easy on each other. But... thanks."
Then he leaned forward and brushed his lips softly against Arthur’s. For a moment, Arthur let it happen, caught between shock and bliss. He snapped out of it a second later and took a jerking step back.
"Don’t," he said, voice rasping in his throat. "I told you, I expect nothing from you except your silence."
Merlin took a step back himself, rubbing a hand over his face. "Sorry. I’ve no right anymore, I know. Sorry. God, bad timing, right?"
Arthur shrugged helplessly. End of the world, his soldiers and a slew of people not a hundred yards away-and not to mention damned Lancelot, waiting for Merlin to come back to him.
"When you find good timing, you let me know," he said at last and let himself touch Merlin one more time on the shoulder. "Trust me, take a few minutes before you try to talk to anyone. I’ll be a distraction for a while."
Then he jogged back toward the camp and the promised football chat with Ector Mburu.
***
2007
The first time he had waited for a phone to ring after seeing Merlin, circumstances had been substantially different. His body had still been humming with satiation, his heart peaceful with the certainty that Merlin would not let too long pass without finding a way to contact him.
He had not been expecting Merlin to show up literally on his doorstep a few weeks after their encounter, but he felt rather smug about it when the guard called to ask about the somewhat odd young man who had turned up at the gate demanding to see the prince. "Send him to me," he said, then spent the next five minutes arranging himself in a nonchalant pose.
"This place is ridiculous," Merlin exclaimed fifteen minutes after that when he burst into Arthur’s private apartments, waving a manila envelope in an agitated manner for emphasis.
Behind him, Leon quirked a smile. "I found him wandering through the portrait hall, sir. I believe his escort misplaced him."
"Again," Merlin added, adorably sour as if the fault was not his for poking around royal residences where he was not supposed to be.
"Thank you, Leon," Arthur said and waited for the door to close behind him before he raised his eyebrows at Merlin. "I admit, I rather expected a phone call first, but you always do surprise me, Merlin."
"I lost your number." When Arthur’s jaw dropped a little, Merlin shrugged. "What, did you think I was going to have it plated in gold? Anyway, I had to come to get this cleared up."
"Get what cleared up?" Arthur did not really care. He prowled toward Merlin, judging the best angle to slide right into kissing.
Instead he found himself with the manila folder planted firmly in his chest and Merlin’s lips scowling at an unacceptable distance from his.
"There," Merlin said as though it were all perfectly self evident and sane. "Those are my test results, full blood panel, completely clean."
Oh. That was what he was on about. Arthur bit back a grin as he peeled the envelope off his chest and tossed it onto his desk. "I wasn’t worried. I had your complete MSF file pulled right after you left, including your full health records."
"What?" Lacking any other envelopes, Merlin poked an accusing finger into Arthur’s chest. "You can’t just go around looking at other people’s health records. There’s such a thing as privacy, you know."
"And yet your employer was strangely fine with giving up your privacy in exchange for my money." Arthur shook his head in mock sadness. "What a world we live in."
Merlin just gave him a dirty look. "I want to see yours, then. Every damn panel you’ve ever had, and I’m sure there have been plenty."
"Sorry, state secret." Arthur stepped forward until he could slip his hands around Merlin’s waist, letting his fingers toy with the waistband of his trousers. "But I promise you, I am perfectly clean and healthy in every respect."
"I just didn’t want you to think I do that kind of thing." Merlin leaned into him almost imperceptibly. "I mean, I hand out HIV meds every day. And condoms, lots of them. I have a whole crate of them back at the site."
"But not with you?" Arthur smiled and pressed his cheek to Merlin’s to feel the heat of his blush. He liked the fact that Merlin did not carry condoms around with him. He liked it very much.
"It’s not like I get a lot of time to pull." Merlin pulled back to frown at Arthur. "But then here we were. And it just didn’t matter."
"No," Arthur agreed, keeping his fingers hooked in Merlin’s belt. "And it still doesn’t. I still don’t have any condoms, either, but I was just wondering whether I should bend you over the desk or take you right to bed."
A quarter hour later, he was pressed against Merlin’s naked back and inside his naked backside, sweaty and sated. Merlin was panting, hands splayed on the desk on either side of his stupid envelope; Arthur had successfully made him come all over it.
"You horrible slag, you," he teased with a kiss to Merlin’s ear.
"You know what they say," Merlin replied, cheerful and breathless. "Great slag equals great shag."
"Nobody says that, Merlin," Arthur scolded, then took Merlin to bed anyway.
After that, there was no question of Merlin going back to Africa. Given his success and newfound friendship with the prince, MSF had been more than happy to give Merlin a London-based fundraising position. Arthur had quietly made sure it paid enough for the Kensington flat that had once belonged to one of his mother’s ladies-in-waiting.
They had conducted their affair right under the noses of the palace and the press. Even Uther had commented that his new friendship seemed to have finally settled him. The world could not have been more to Arthur’s liking, and he had every confidence it would go on forever.
***
As the last year of the world drew near, Arthur stopped sleeping more than a couple of fitful hours each night. There was so much to do in so little time. And the world had so little time left he could hardly bear to miss any of it.
He had just dozed off when the tap came on his bedroom door. Rubbing his eyes, he started to struggle out of the covers-then startled when the door started to open without any word from him. No one ever came into his room, not even-
"Arthur? Are you awake?" Morgana called from the cracked door.
"What?" he said stupidly. They had shared a residence for as long as Arthur had been alive, but she had never been in his bedroom, nor he in hers.
She looked around with an air of bemusement as she came in, studying whatever secrets she found revealed in the faint moonlight. "I’m sorry to wake you, but it’s important."
He managed to sit up and blink at her through gritty eyes. "Morgana? What’s going on?"
She sat down on the edge of his bed and even in the dim light he could see the gleam in her eyes as she looked at him silently for a long moment. She stirred finally, reaching into her jacket and pulling out a thick envelope. "I need you to promise me something, Arthur."
Arthur took the envelope without looking at it, still staring at his sister. "Anything, Moggy," he said with unaccustomed gentleness. "You know that."
Morgana smiled, then reached out and squeezed his hand. "Promise me that you’ll take care of Gwen. Whatever happens to me, make sure she gets on that ark."
He frowned at her in confusion as she stood up again. "Of course, but Morgana, nothing’s-"
Then a sudden fear came over him, and he tore open the envelope. Two red cards and one familiar mobile fell into his hand.
"Morgana!" he yelled, but she was already gone.
It took him two minutes to get trousers, shirt, and shoes on, five more to question the night guard about where Morgana had gone, get in his car and go after her. He knew even as he drove that there was little chance of finding her before she committed whatever act of idiocy she had planned.
After an hour, he had covered most of Westminster and Kensington while trying her phone repeatedly, then finally calling Pellinor and having him roust out the rest of their company to join the search. Desperation finally drove him through the gates of Buckingham Palace, surprising a number of guards-as well as the King.
Uther and Morgana had always had a difficult relationship, exacerbated by their profound differences regarding the global secrecy around coming events. But Uther was the only father Morgana remembered, and he had always had more influence over her than anyone else.
"I’m afraid Morgana is about to do something incredibly stupid," he told a bleary-eyed Uther without preamble as he strode into the royal bedroom. "She isn’t answering her phone, and I can’t find her."
Uther ran his hand through his hair, only making himself look more rumpled. "Arthur, what in the world are you on about?"
Arthur pulled the extra ark pager from his pocket and tossed it onto the coverlet. "She came into my room an hour ago. She made me promise to take care of Guinevere, and she gave me that, along with her boarding pass and Gwen’s."
"Shit." Uther swung his legs out of bed. "I believe I know whom she is with, and I can figure out where they are going. Leave this to me, Arthur."
"Father, I can-"
"Go back to bed, Arthur." Uther stood and gripped his shoulder. "You’ve done well. Leave Morgana to me now."
Arthur nodded reluctantly and left. On the way back to Clarence House, he could only think of how much he and Morgana had not know about each other. She had known nothing about Merlin until the end, and they had never discussed it since. If she had a lover, he had not known it, either.
Nor had he known that Morgana had gone so much deeper into her obsession with disclosing the conspiracy of the arks than Arthur had even guessed. Deep enough that she had given over her boarding pass and best friend to him and disappeared into the night.
He fell into bed and nightmares of fire and water.
Dawn light had just begun to filter into his room when he woke to a pounding on the door. He was still squinting when the door flew open without his leave for an unprecedented second time in one night.
"Your Highness? Arthur, Arthur, wake up, oh, God, wake up."
He could count on his fingers the number of times Gwen had called him Arthur and still have fingers left over for a variety of rude gestures. Nor had he heard that kind of fear in her voice since he had gone with Morgana to break the secret to her. He bolted upright in alarm. "Gwen?"
Gwen was already in the room as Arthur got out of bed, trying to avert her eyes even though he was still fully dressed from earlier. She forgot any thoughts of propriety a second later, distracted by her own distress as she fumbled for the remote control to Arthur’s television.
"-same tunnel that claimed the life of her mother, Queen Ygraine, nearly thirty years ago. The body of BBC investigative journalist Alberto Tauren was also found by the car. There were no eye witnesses to the crash, but Tauren‘s car was stopped several metres behind the wreck, leading to speculation that Tauren had attempted to aid the Lady Morgana and Dr. Alvarr and was himself caught in the conflagration."
Gwen’s hands shook so hard that the remote flew out of her hand, hit one of the bedposts, and thudded to the floor. Instinctively, Arthur wrapped his arms around her and pulled her face against his chest as if he could protect her from the live image of the still-burning wreckage. "Jesus, Mogs," he whispered over Gwen’s curls.
"She was going to tell, wasn’t she?" Gwen said into his shirt. "I begged her not to, but she said it wasn’t right to keep it a secret."
"I know," he said. So it was John Alvarr who was Morgana’s partner, the conspiracy within the conspiracy. A Nobel-winning physicist and the stepdaughter of the King would have made for a compelling and believable interview, if they had made it.
"She said maybe they could figure out how to save more people. Or even if they couldn’t, everyone-" Gwen’s voice caught, and her shoulders began to shake. "Everyone had the right to meet their destiny as they saw fit."
"Like she did," Arthur muttered, thinking of the boarding passes he had locked away with his own and Merlin’s.
He held Gwen as his shirt front soaked hot with her tears, watching the television coverage of his sister’s assassination over Gwen’s head. Tears burned his eyes, but did not fall. Somehow, he thought Morgana would sneer at the notion of grieving so much for one death when there were so many more to come.
But she was his sister.
When Gwen started to sag against him with exhaustion, he lifted her up and laid her in his bed. She was asleep before he had her settled, and she would be safe from any prying eyes here for as long as she needed.
Arthur dressed himself again, this time in a manner befitting a prince. He clicked off the television set and called for a car to take him to the palace.
Though the city was just stirring into another cold November morning, stunned Londoners were already laying flowers and notes outside Clarence House. Arthur watched through the tinted glass as people he had never met wept for his sister, then turned and stared at the car as though they could see him. He jumped when a woman pressed herself against his window, moaning her grief.
"It was the same when your mum died, God rest her soul, Highness," said Lionel from the driver seat. He had certainly been with the family long enough to remember. "And the people loved our poor lass just about as much."
"I don’t think I knew," Arthur murmured, too low for Lionel to hear.
The scene was even worse at Buckingham. Two guards had to come out and clear the flowers before the car could drive through the gate. "Stop at the front entrance, Lionel," Arthur said. "The people need to see me."
Lionel frowned at him in the rear-view mirror, but had known Arthur long enough not to say anything. He stopped the car in full view of the mourners and news cameras, then got out to open Arthur’s door.
Arthur stepped out to the flash of cameras, far off but close enough with their lenses. A ragged cheer went up from the people gathering at the fence with their candles and flowers. He gave a single, grave nod to them and lifted his hand in silent thanks before walking around the car and striding calmly inside.
Once out of public view, he walked faster, not stopping to speak with any of the shocked and horrified staff, but occasionally accepting the touch of their hands on his arms as he passed. He made straight for the private residence and one particular private office.
He slammed the door open without bothering to knock. The television was on, as he had known it would be, but Uther was not watching it. As Arthur stormed in, the King kept his bowed head resting on his clasped hands. The door slammed shut again.
"Did you do this?" Arthur demanded with deadly quiet. The reporter was now describing the picture of Morgana’s body being extracted from the wreckage of her car.
Uther did not react. The television droned on. After a minute, Arthur walked forward, picked up a heavy stone paperweight from his father’s desk, and hurled it through the television screen.
"I said, did you fucking do this?" Arthur yelled as the television sparked and droned down to silence.
His father finally looked up, eyes reddened and desolate. Arthur searched for guilt within the grief, but his own was too strong. "Arthur. Morgana was-"
"I fucking know what she was," Arthur said, then stalked around the desk, seized the arms of Uther’s chair, and slammed him back into the bookcase behind him. "Tell me the truth. Did you have my sister murdered?"
"No! My God, Arthur, how could you think I would do that?" Uther did not fight him, just looked up at his son with a combination of fear and pity that made Arthur feel sick. "I tracked her down, but there was no time. They had already made contact with Tauren, and after that there were only minutes left. There was no time."
Arthur staggered back against the desk. "No time," he mumbled. Time had become the most precious commodity in the world, and it was the one thing he could not give Morgana back. His knees gave out and he slid down to the floor, all his power gone with his fury.
Uther reached out and put his hands on Arthur’s shoulders. "Arthur. Morgana may not have been my blood, but she was my daughter. I would have done anything I could to save her from her madness, no matter how far she had gone."
"They killed her where Mother died." He looked up at his father, feeling like a small child begging for answers.
"It was a message to me. Even royalty is not above the consequences of breaking the trust." Uther bowed his head again. "Arthur, swear to me that you won’t follow her example."
It would be the one fitting tribute he could give to her. He could walk out right now into the sea of lenses outside and tell them everything. They could kill him, but not fast enough. Everyone would hear him, and someone would believe.
But then who would take care of Gwen-and Merlin? With Morgana and Arthur both dead, there would be no reason to let them keep their tickets, and they would die with the rest of the world. Even without his unwitting promise to Morgana, he could not allow that to happen.
"I swear," he said and buried his face against his knees until he stopped shaking. It took a long time.
***
Part 4