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I. The Funeral
Gwen dies with a spear through the center of her body, angle right enough that it cuts in from the center of her armor. She topples off her horse and Merlin is there to listen to the final breath escaping her breath, “Mind the house,” she coughs up small amounts of blood, “while I’m away.”
The funeral is loud in his ears and there is no one left to grieve with him. Camelot has fallen to the Saxons and with them, they’ve taken his queen. Percival’s funeral pyre was yesterday and Leon is still recovering in Gaius’ room. He’s been in a coma for six days and Merlin has been trying to wake him but cannot find the proper spell to reverse his magical sleep. He’s only away from the infirmary now because Gaius is fixing a possible solution potion.
Everyone in Camelot is silent when Merlin walks through the crowd. A group of druids kneel before him in the courtyard but Merlin asks them to stand with a simple hand gesture. There will be no great kingdom here anymore, and no great power.
Leon dies in his sleep and the lake doesn’t stir for the wind.
II. Agravaine
In this life, Agravaine is the enemy, wearing a thick red cloak and forcing Merlin to kneel at his feet. The people of their land are in shambles; their tattered lives remain on street gutters, in piles in mass graves. Each man of each household is changed and William the Bastard, once Agravaine the Bastard, sits up in his ivory tower.
Merlin escapes with fragments of his life and finds Elyan sitting by the lake, leading an unsuccessful rebel faction. He enters the camp and Elyan smiles, “Can I help you, lad?”
Merlin has trained for centuries and cannot stand to see his home overrun. “I want to join.”
“Find a seat then, we will accommodate you.”
The other men accept him as one of their own and when he sits on moss to watch the lake, they bring him a blanket for the cold. Arthur doesn’t rise for this night, either. When his men are starving and his home is overrun. Merlin keeps his head together and watches Elyan die in the hands of a tyrant.
His finals words are lost in the noise of the battle and try as he might to avenge, Merlin dies beside him.
III. Plague Rats
There’s a sore that appears on Merlin’s hands in dark purple. It sprouts and grows and no matter how many times Merlin sets its tide back with magic, the sore grows and blossoms into thick black rings. This generation, Mordred is a male prostitute with black rings scored down his back. He laughs when Merlin shows him, “Look at that, physician. You’ve got the sickness. What will you do?”
“Die,” Merlin says and forces down a coughing fit. “Just like the rest of you here.”
The brothel Mordred works in has been converted to an emergency hospice and there are seven other people here with the sickness. Outside their doors, half of the country is dying like rotted fruits. The beggars, thieves, vicars, and lords bleeding on the streets and there are hardly undertakers enough for all them.
Mordred’s grin is relatively toothless and he says, “I can suck you if you like. You look like a man who takes himself too seriously. Honest, I’ll suck you, and you can give me some more of that medicine that makes the pain lessen.”
Merlin raises an amused eyebrow, “That won’t be necessary.” This isn’t the first generation Mordred has approached him with offers for sex. “Just relax, now. I’ll give you medicine until there’s none left to give.”
“And if you die before me?”
Merlin smirks, “You have arms, don’t you?”
Mordred dies holding Merlin’s hand, crying softly and afraid of death. Merlin takes off his face mask to give him a consoling kiss and dies a day later. They are burned in the same pyre.
IV. The King’s Wife
Anne Boleyn is a pretty girl and when she’s accused of treason, incest and all other kinds of bullshit, Merlin takes it upon himself to visit her. Disguised as a physician simply checking head lice, he sneaks into her dungeon and brings Morgana food for six days. Merlin doesn’t try to complicate her last days with their history, simply smiles and prays with her when she asks it of him. After the sixth day, she is executed and finds his eyes in the crowd.
Her death is swift and Merlin returns his home to grieve privately.
V. Blitzkrieg
There are families huddled in the London Underground stations. In the deepest ones, Merlin and Lance can hardly hear any of the bombing; just know there are men dying above them. They don’t always get a deep tunnel. There are times the people beside them die under rubble and they are all trapped, watching them bleed.
Lance holds Merlin in his arms, huddled together under a blanket in the dark, beside dying children and kisses his mouth to stop his sobbing. There is fear in the hearts of every child in the room and fear deep in Merlin’s chest.
The kingdom is no more and Lance asks him not to cry, not to fear. They will be reunited one day and Arthur will lead them again, Arthur will give the people strength and Arthur will change the world. “Even if he can’t operate a toaster,” Lancelot promises.
Merlin wipes at his eyes and shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter now. The war will end in bloodshed and I need him, Lance. I need him and England needs him and goddamn it all, the entire world needs leadership right now. It couldn’t possibly be worse than this.” He fists his hair and tugs anxiously, “I’ve seen it all and the Nazis aren’t the first to horrify me. But even then, Arthur didn’t come back. Even now, Arthur isn’t going to come back.”
And Arthur doesn’t.
VI. Epilogue
In 2015, Merlin wakes up because Lance is playing Jay-Z very loudly again. The bass from No Church In the Wild is reverberating through the house and Merlin wakes up because his door is shaking. He grabs a pair of pants and pulls them on and pads out into the living room, zipping them up. In the kitchen doorway, Lance is laughing and dancing and when he sees Merlin, runs up and hugs him hard. His heart is beating rapidly against Merlin’s chest and when Lance moves away, Arthur is standing there.
Merlin is lost for a moment and it’s only Wednesday, he has a 48 hour shift at the hospital in six hours and fully intended to sleep for the rest of the day. Arthur has a glass of orange juice in his hand and a piece of bacon in the other. Lance is dancing, “Look! Look!”
Merlin forgot about the lake. He hasn’t visited since before the Blitz and feels something stir in his gut. He forgot about Arthur and Albion and the fucking horrible way Gwen looked when she died. When he starts talking, he realizes the stirring is fear, “What’s wrong? Why are you back? Everything is okay, what are you doing here? Why are you back?”
Arthur is wearing a leather jacket and a Bob Marley t-shirt, both of which actually belong to Lance. He looks around awkwardly but doesn’t move to embrace Merlin. “I—I’m—Gwaine was, I suppose, resurrected this morning, finally.”
“We have to find him,” Lance says at once, “Oh, gods, Merlin, Merlin, Merlin, get dressed, I’ll cancel your shift, jesus, I’ll cancel my shift and get oh, what’s that girl’s name, the one with the dreadlocks that is good at the locating spells?”
“Freya.” Merlin says.
“Freya! I’ll give her a call, see if she can teleport right over and we’ll find Gwaine, the poor sod.” Lance heads back into the kitchen, still talking.
“Freya’s back?”
Merlin nods, “She lives in America.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Well—“ Merlin says after an awkward silence, “I better get dressed.”
“Right. I, uh, have juice.” Arthur replies lamely.
Merlin is turning away from him and cursing himself for acting like an idiot when he hears Arthur say, “It’s nice to see you again.”
“Yeah,” he replies, “You too.”
Lance turns the music down and from the kitchen Merlin can hear Arthur asking, “What is America?”
-
Morgana is wearing a sheet when she answers the door and for a moment, Merlin is completely surprised. This generation, she knows him instantly and her smile is luminous. She launches herself into his arms and he is left holding the sheet up for her in their embrace. She smells of sweet foods and he never realized how much he missed the scent of her. It rattles inside his chest, “Morgana.”
“My old man,” she says and her voice breaks. “And look, my big brother.”
The centuries have laid waste to their quarrels and Merlin carefully passes her to Arthur, tying the sheet off so that it will hold. Morgana is unphased by her relative nudity and says to Arthur, “Are you still English? My biological parents are Irish this time, which I find to be more or less ironic.”
“This time?” Arthur says into her hair.
“We’ve all been reborn multiple times,” Freya supplies. “Except for you.”
“And Gwaine.” Morgana says to him.
“Does he know yet? Is he here?”
Morgana releases Arthur and turns to face him, shifting the sheet to accommodate her height and wrapping it in her hand. “No, he just popped out to the offie.”
“The what?”
“It’s ten in the morning.”
“Maybe you should come inside.”
They all cram into the apartment and sit elbow-to-elbow awkwardly on the couch. Morgana gestures to the kitchen, “Kettle’s in there, Lance, be a luv and--”
“Of course,” Lance says happily and heads into the kitchen.
“Right, I’m going to put clothes on. Just a mo--”
“Morgana!” Lance shouts from the kitchen and then appears at the doorway. “There’s a naked man standing in your kitchen.”
Elyan appears, scratching the back of his neck and shoulders past Lance, “Morgan? What’s going on? Who are--” his eyes land on Merlin and Arthur and his face whites.
Morgana stutters to begin explaining, “Fuck, Eli--”
“My king.” Elyan crosses the room and drops to kneel before him.
Arthur looks startled and glances at Merlin with a question on his lips. Merlin cuts him off, “Elyan, perhaps you ought to save the royal brown-nosing until after you’re wearing pants.”
Elyan laughs, a deep-bellied rumble that shakes his shoulders and he stands. “Morgan took the sheet.” He stops, glances at Morgana and then amends his statement. "Morgana.”
Morgana smiles at him like he’s put the stars in the sky, “Let’s get dressed,” she says and offers him her hand. The two head to a room in the opposite direction of the kitchen and a door shuts behind them.
Freya laughs uncomfortably.
“How many times have you been reborn?” Arthur says to Merlin and the question hangs between them.
Freya’s laughter becomes considerably more uncomfortable and she scrambles out of the room, “I better help Lance.”
Arthur turns to face Merlin. “How many years has it been for you?”
“I don’t know.”
"Liar.”
“I don’t. It’s been enough years for me to forget. More than a thousand. A thousand years.”
“And rebirths?”
“Eighteen.”
Arthur reaches out, fingers skimming over Merlin’s knuckles. “This is so strange. You look as young as ever. Younger, even. Maybe. How long has this rebirth been?”
“Alive? Maybe 150 years or so, conscious for around same amount.”
“Conscious?”
“The bodies we are born into don’t make us inherently aware of our history. Sometimes they do, though, or sometimes we find each other and it triggers consciousness, sometimes we have dreams that develop consciousness, sometimes we’re intrinsically attracted to each other. I found Lance in Omdurman in 1898 and it triggered his consciousness so we stick together since then. But, Freya, has had cycles of consciousness as short as sixteen years and as long as four hundred years. We don’t really understand how it works.”
“Oh.” Arthur’s eyes are a stronger blue than Merlin remembers. “Are we--can we be killed?”
“Yes.”
“Oh. Okay.” He is silent for a long moment and the tea kettle whistles in the kitchen. Arthur doesn’t even startle.
Merlin shifts to face him more comfortably and recognizes the conflict in his eyes. “Are you okay?”
“No.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“No, it’s me. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I did not intend to be away for so long. By the gods, a thousand years. Everything has changed so drastically. Lance says the monarchy is lost.”
“Yeah, well, Lance would. It’s complicated, don’t think about that stuff for now. Focus on what you know.”
“What do I know?” Arthur argues. “Near to nothing! I just watched my sister embrace me and smile at you as though there is nothing wrong in the world but no time has passed for me. In my mind, she has not been dead for longer than a day. I fell asleep a thousand years ago and missed everything. I missed everyone. I missed you.”
Merlin’s chest seizes and he remembers the ache of waiting under tunnels for Arthur, waiting for Arthur while Gwen bled to death, waiting for Arthur while being beaten beside Leon in the Hanoi Hilton. Percy and Leon were born American and Merlin followed after him into the Vietnamese jungle, to protect them for some reason. They starved for four years and bled just as long and Merlin can’t even remember exactly when he gave up hope but it was in Hoa Lo, that he knows for sure. Percy and Leon died in Vietnam and when Merlin made it back to London, Lancelot treated him like a wounded animal.
“I missed you, too.”
Morgana and Elyan appear suddenly, slamming the door of their room shut behind them. “There, all dressed. Where’s that tea, Lancelot?”
“We need some help, actually!”
Elyan heads to the kitchen, fully dressed and just as he disappears, the front door is jostled from the outside. Gwaine enters, wearing a hood and shades, dropping several objects on a nearby table before even glancing at them. “Oi! I’m back, I couldn’t decide what to buy so I brought half the fecking shop--”
Morgana wrings her hands and says, “Gwaine.”
He stops and sets another bag on the floor, finally noticing Arthur and Merlin standing awkwardly. His jaw drops slightly and then he snaps it shut, mouth closed in thin, fierce line. Gwaine pulls his shades and hood off, exposing a military buzz cut. His voice breaks and he drops to his knees, “My liege.”
Arthur swallows hard and glances at Merlin but Merlin can’t save him from this one. He gestures towards Gwaine with a small gesture, “Go.”
Arthur stands and approaches Gwaine, then drops to his knees beside him. “Gwaine,” Arthur says softly and raises his chin to meet his eyes. “I don’t ever remember you not looking me in the eye.”
Gwaine sets his jaw and refuses to meet his eye. “I have never been in such a debt to you.”
“And what debt is that?”
“Please, Sire,” Gwaine says, shifting uncomfortably.
“I am not your Sire anymore, Gwaine. I may have been a long time ago but I am not anymore. I am not a king or a liege or a lord. It’s taken a thousand years but I’m just a man now. As men, there is no debt that you owe me.” Arthur urges him to stand, “Come on, stand with me.”
Merlin gestures obscurely to Morgana but she seems to understand and clears the room so that Merlin, Arthur, and Gwaine can talk. Arthur sits beside Gwaine on the sofa and Merlin sits in front of them on the coffee table. There is a pause for a moment and Gwaine says, “It’s nice to see you again, Merlin.”
Merlin nods, “How long has it been?”
Gwaine laughs and it breaks off in his throat. “Just a millennia or so.”
“See, I know you do not owe me a debt. If you did, don’t you think I would have collected in a millennia?” Arthur goads lightly.
“Of course, sire.”
“Please don’t call me that.”
“I failed you,” Gwaine says casually. “I failed you protect my king and you are a king, Arthur. You lead us into battle, you fought beside us and you--you cared for us. You were like a father to us and I,” he jabs at his own chest repeatedly, “I failed you. I failed everyone.”
Merlin wrings his hands together and thinks of all the times he predicted how this conversation would go in his head. He realizes he hasn’t repeated the fantasy sequence in years. Decades, maybe. Lance would know. To his right, Arthur takes Gwaine’s hands and Merlin understands the fascination. They look the same, everyone looks nearly the same as they did seventeen hundred years ago.
“I have no greater regret, Sir Gwaine, than allowing you to believe this fallacy. You are my friend, my brother, and for years, you were the best knight in ranks. You could never fail me and you never did. Please, I ask you as an equal, banish this thought.”
Gwaine’s eyes cast around the room, before he finally looked back at Arthur. “You forgive me?”
“There is nothing to forgive, Gwaine. This isn’t absolution, it is a misunderstanding.”
It’s going to take more than an encouraging speech but Arthur smiles at him and says, “How about we have some tea with everyone? Merlin?”
Gwaine laughs, “He’s not your servant anymore.”
-
Dawn is rising over Gwaine’s patio when Merlin finds Arthur out there, hiding from the celebrations and impromptu nudist games. Merlin is wearing his clothes again and holding two beers. He hands one to Arthur, “Drink it, the Egyptians invented it.”
“A modern invention?”
“The Egyptians were very intelligent.”
The sit in silence for minutes, drinking and watching the sun rise over the distant horizon until Arthur says, “You forgot me, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry to have taken so long.”
“I’m sorry to have forgotten you.” Merlin says and resolutely does not let himself cry.
“Where is my father?”
“He lives with Gaius on the coast of Italy.” Merlin considers informing Arthur about their marriage but figures it might be a subject to ease into.
“Are they well?”
“Quite.”
Arthur sets the beer down and scrubs at his face, “Gods, everything is so different. Even you are reserved and mysterious. I feel as though I don’t know you anymore. Have you still got magic? Are you married? How painful is it to die? How are we going to navigate through this? What is an offie? Where is your dragon?”
“Whoa,” Merlin says, stepping back, “Slow down. We’ll get to it all. You’ll be here for a while, just relax.”
Arthur sighs. “Are you married, though?”
“No,” Merlin says, “I’m single.”
Arthur smiles. “Good. Me too,”
-
There’s a year of pressure beneath Merlin’s eyes whenever Arthur walks into a room. He’s never wearing shoes and he spends most of his time trying to organize new technology and colloquialisms into his internal schema all while learning French and German. He paints a lot, visions he may have seen or persons he may have been but cannot remember quite fully. Merlin has offered to clear his thoughts but Arthur says he prefers the memories of Camelot to those of Margaret Thatcher.
The day Gwen is in the news, she was shot and killed in a robbery gone wrong and Arthur sits up until five in the morning when Merlin has to leave for work. There’s a canvas nearby and red paint splashed across it viciously. Merlin sits beside him on the floor in his pyjamas. “Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and go into your room to check that you’re still here,” Merlin says.
Arthur doesn’t look at him but his face is wet and so Merlin keeps talking. “The last time I saw her was in Camelot. Her last words to me where ‘mind the house while I’m away’.”
Arthur laughs wetly and it sounds horrible in Merlin’s ears. “Everytime I think about her, I miss Camelot with such a deep ache in my chest it makes me sick. I don’t think I can love her the same way I loved her then but I still love her. I miss her and I miss the throne room and Lancelot wearing red and I miss you.”
“I’m right here, Arthur. I can buy Lance a cape.”
Arthur shakes his head, “No, you’re not here with me. You’re in this century with a ridiculous object on your lap all the time and every time you come home you smell hollow.”
“It’s a laptop. I use it so frequently because that is how information is shared these days. Listen, I understand what you’re saying but I have to be here. I lived through every century without you, I have to keep up with what’s happening. And frankly, we don’t live in Camelot anymore. If you’re here with me, you have be here with us.”
Arthur’s eyes are so fucking blue it makes Merlin furious. The tears are gone, “Seriously, come on, let’s go to bed, I’ll call in sick and we can go out to the country this weekend.”
“Cars make me uncomfortable.”
“You can sleep on the drive up.”
“I need you to kiss me.”
Merlin is taken aback for a moment and then complies with a chaste touch. “Don’t think,” he says once they part, “That we are disjointed because of our timelines. We are united because I love you. For centuries I have loved you and even when I forgot, it did not make it any less true.”
Arthur nods, eyes just as sad. “Okay.”
They stand and head to bed together, Lancelot stirring in his room for his shift. In between their sheets, Merlin kisses Arthur again, slower and longer. “I understand your grief and I hope that it is mitigated by the knowledge that one day, she will return.
“Camelot will return.”