"I still can't believe how lucky I was," Arthur stated as they sat down to dinner. "I owe that boy my life and," he paused, "I don't know who he was or where he's from. We need to be sure to get him a decent burial."

"I'll do that," Merlin said as he turned to place a plate of food before Gwen, "If you'll allow me the time."

"Oh," Arthur's voice was surprised and skeptical, "So you can go and visit that girl again?"

Merlin turned to his liege in confusion. "What?"

"The girl," Arthur drawled, watching as the young man turned away from the table to fetch the wine pitcher to fill their glasses.

"Don't have one," Merlin replied blandly.

"That's not what Guinevere tells me," Arthur said with a pause. Not noticing the look the servant gave his Queen. "So, why don't you tell us all about her?"

"Right." Merlin stepped up to the table again to pour the wine into the Queen's goblet, meeting her gaze without giving anything away.

"And why you're walking with a limp." There was an edge in his voice now and Merlin debated what to say. With a shrug he decided to tell the truth and see where it got him.

"The truth," Merlin said, putting down the pitcher and leaning over the table to meet the king's eye. "The truth is the other night, when I was getting the bath for the Queen, a druid boy found me. He said his sister was sick with the Sweating Sickness and needed help. I agreed to go with him. He said she was in the Valley of the Fallen Kings so we left at first light. But when we got there, no one was there. Turns out Morgana paid him to lure me away, something about meddling too much in her plans. Then she knocked me out, poisoned me, and tossed me off a cliff. But the boy felt bad so he helped me get back. That's why I'm limping and where I've been for the last two days."

The whole time Merlin had been talking he had kept his gaze locked with the King's and watched as his expression became more and more amused. After a beat of silence, Arthur let out a snort. "Right."

"You don't believe me?" Merlin asked, picking the pitcher back up.

"Who would believe a ridiculous story like that?" Arthur scoffed. "Now where were you really?"

Merlin sighed and turned away from the table. "What do you want me to say?" He asked before ranting on with the first thing that came into his head. "Do you want me to say that yeah, there was a girl except she died, years ago but I still visit? Or that I tripped over the grave marker and that's how I hurt my leg?" The second half was a blatant lie but he figured that Arthur would be too distracted by the first revelation to even hear the second.

"You're serious?" Arthur breathed, staring at the servant as he turned back around to face them.

Merlin looked at him, fully intending to say it was a joke, but found he couldn't. This was the first time he had ever mentioned Freya to Arthur and he couldn't deny it. Instead he looked away.

"I'm so sorry, Merlin," Gwen said, "I didn't realize. If I had I wouldn't have said anything." He gave her a flicker of a half-smile but couldn't bring himself to reply.

"I didn't know," Arthur said, not entirely sure what to say. He'd never been very good with feelings and this conversation was getting awkward. "How about we go with the first one," he joked, trying to lighten the mood.

"Arthur!" Gwen protested.

"Yeah," Merlin said, his voice surprisingly thick. "I thought you'd like that one better." He turned away from the table again and wiped his eyes quickly before moving to refill Arthur's goblet. He was glad when he could return to his own room, overwhelmed by the memories his unwitting tongue had brought back to the forefront of his mind, his dreams giving him a taste of what he had missed.

"I wonder when it happened," Gwen murmured as she lay in bed, the King awake beside her.

"Had to have been before he came to Camelot," he replied. "I think I'd have noticed if it had been while he was here."

"I don't know," Gwen replied, turning to face him. "I asked him once if he had a girl back in Ealdor. He said he didn't, none of the girls growing up had been his age. And he didn't seem at all upset by the question, like he was today."

"Are you suggesting that I wouldn't notice if my own servant were gallivanting around, seeing a girl?" he asked. "Or that he'd be able to hide something like that from me while being my servant?"

"Well," Gwen said as he got up on his elbow to look at her. "You weren't always nice him. Not those first couple of years."

"I wasn't that bad!" Arthur denied. She stared at him. "Okay, maybe I was, but still! It's Merlin! Merlin couldn't keep a secret if his life depended on it!" She sighed and turned back. It would be a couple of years before he learned how wrong he was about that.

"There's one way to know for sure."

"I'm not going to ask him!" Arthur exclaimed as he too lay down, wrapping his wife in his arms. "Merlin's enough of a girl as is. He doesn't need any encouragement." Gwen chuckled lightly as they both drifted off to sleep. It would be a few years before they came to know the truth of what Merlin told them that night, that he really had been the target of Morgana and longer than that before Arthur learned of his true role in the death of Merlin's first love. But for now it was enough to think that Merlin had loved and lost.