A last parting gift.

My God, I am addicted to LJ and Merlin fanfic.

Oh well. I'm not putting this up anywhere else, simply because I don't like it much. It looks too... sameish, really. (that's a word. Really.)

Anway, here you go *throws fic.*

Rating: g.

Disclaimer: Don't own Merlin, sadly.

“How am I supposed to trust you?”

Arthur’s voice was sharp as steel. Merlin sighed. This was never going to be easy.

“What you should be asking is can you live with yourself if you don’t?”

*

The day dawns black and moody, like the king. Arthur strides down the hallways, his thick coat flapping at his heels. He misses the light leather of his youth.

But this is the king.

Isn’t that better than swordfights and laughter?

Isn’t that better?

*

The kiss is demanding, and Merlin watches from the window. The frame is cold beneath his hands.

This is not what magic was meant for.

But this is the best use for it.

He watches as Lancelot undoes Gwen’s dress, and then slips off the ledge, magic slowing his fall so he lands noiselessly and easily.

He only gave them a push in the right direction.

No love spells for Camelot. No beauty in the morning rays of sun.

This is the calm before the storm.

*

The next day Merlin rides out, and Arthur is powerless to stop him. Merlin doesn’t even bother to put up a spell to keep him in his throne. There is nothing Arthur can do.

From the window, he watches as his lover leaves. No long goodbye for the warlock.

This is the calm before the storm, he thinks.

The frame is cold beneath his hands.

*

The ride is slow and tiresome, and there is no Arthur to entertain him.

Even if there had been, they are not talking now.

Not now.

Not yet.

*

When he gets off his horse and ties it to a tree, that is when he looks at the place he has arrived at.

No servants to help him; no, he is a servant. A slave to this.

She’s sitting in a cave. She looks at him, and he wishes she wouldn’t, because her face is love and hate and his mother and Arthur.

She is everything and nothing.

He goes to her, because this is the way it has to be.

The floor is rough and bare, and he doesn’t want to do this, not with her, never with her, but he has to, because this is the only way.

The child will be beautiful and strong, and it will be everything and nothing.

And it will be there when it is needed most.

He leaves her, sleeping on the stone floor, and rides back to Camelot.

It is done.

*

When he returns, Arthur makes him wash in ice-cold water. Merlin shakes and shivers, and feels sick with the cold, but he does it anyway.

And then Arthur’s body warms him afterwards, and the tears are warm, and the love is warm.

“I’m sorry,” they whisper to one another.

This is the storm, and it is beautiful.

Beautiful and angry and powerful, like love.

Like Arthur.

*

The child is born. Merlin knows it is alive, he knows its first breath. He knows the cold of its sleep, the endless dreams as the child is prepared.

The saviour of this world.

It feels strange to have those words in his head, so ready to spill onto his tongue and out into the air where Arthur can hear him.

Arthur does not know.

He knows of the child, of course, and he knows why it is alive.

A child born to wake them, a child born to save the world.

Merlin washes again in cold water, because he cannot bear to go back to Arthur with a body that has been with a woman like that.

He feels empty, like someone has stolen his soul.

His brain chants You have a son, you have a son, and the words echo in his bones. His tears are as cold as the water.

*

Arthur notices the goose-flesh. He sighs and kisses it, draws his tongue over the prickling skin. Merlin moans and tries not to cry again, because he feels like a traitor. A traitor to Arthur.

“It’s alright. It had to be done. It was for the best,” whispers Arthur.

He is right.

*

Later, when Merlin’s hair is grey and he wears long robes like Gaius used to, he thinks back to those days.

The grey days, before the golden long afternoon.

Some curses are for the best.

Some curses are blessings in disguise.

Merlin can see his son, sleeping in a cave deep in the earth. He is sleeping, waiting for the world to need him.

It was unfair, he thinks. Unfair to make him sleep with Nimueh to have such a child. Unfair to make him hurt Arthur; unfair to make him hurt himself with the betrayal.

Yet, some curses are blessings in disguise.

Merlin adjusts his glasses and watches the king’s children play in the gardens.

Gwen sits and sews. Lancelot is away.

*

In the dark evening, Merlin lays down his head and sleeps. Arthur lies beside him.

Far away, Nimueh’s son, Merlin’s son, lies sleeping in the ground.

They say he waits to wake.