Merlin paused again, head tilted, as if waiting for something.

"What about her?" he asked.

"Um...that...that night...with your mother..."

His eyes widened. "Was it...it was just an illusion."

Merlin shook his head. "That was...that really was your mother. She had been lied to, though, mostly by Morgause - Uther hadn't betrayed her, because he hadn't known what would happen. But yeah, she..."

"...she gave her life for mine," Arthur said hoarsely, sitting back in his chair. "My mother..."

"Loved you," Merlin said. "I had...I had asked Gaius. You were born of magic. And your mother hadn't known that it would cost her life. But, that she would willingly give up her life for you, that she was proud of you, that she loved you - those were all her. Those were all true."

Arthur shut his eyes, leaning his face in his hands, his elbows on the table on either side of the forgotten dinner.

"Why did you stop me?" Arthur asked. "When I was about to kill my father. You could have just let me die. You should have."

Because he remembered what he had said to his father that night, and realized, he had been right. His father had hunted down sorcerers, hunted down Merlin's kin, and butchered them - like animals.

"Because you would have been devastated if you had killed him," Merlin said. "I couldn't do that to you. Or to Camelot."

Arthur raised his head.

"...thank you," he said, quietly, shamefully - because he was the Crown Prince of Camelot and shouldn't be thanking sorcerers. And yet he is. Because he wasn't thanking a sorcerer, he was thanking Merlin.

There was another long pause, before Arthur said, "Continue."

"The next thing was...the Bastet," Merlin said. Arthur looked up at the tone of Merlin's voice, frowned when he saw the tears streaming down his face. "The Druid girl that came in with Halig, she was cursed to turn into a Bastet at night...her name was Freya. And...well, I was trying to help her, to escape where she could live in peace and where I might be able to help her, but...she died."

Arthur frowned at the brash way Merlin went over this part. "There's something you're not telling me."

"...I was going to do with her," Merlin said. "I was...tired, of being hunted, and so was she. We were going to find some place nice and secluded. She could control her form around me, and my magic..."

Arthur's heart fell to pieces as he realized the look in Merlin's eyes. "You loved her?"

"...then," Merlin agreed. "I did."

"So..." Arthur remembered that night. "You..." His eyes suddenly widened. "I killed her, didn't I?"

A pause. Then a slow, single nod.

Arthur shut his eyes, wondering how the hell Merlin could still remain so doggedly loyal to the man who killed the woman he loved.

"Con...continue..."

Merlin briefly went into discovering that he and Vivienne had been enchanted to love each other (and suddenly that hazy week made much more sense), and how a kiss with his true love, Gwen, would fix it.

"Wait," Arthur said. "True love..."

"Yeah," Merlin said. "The enchantment reversed itself once Gwen kissed you."

"...Gwen isn't my true love," Arthur said. "I mean...she and I..."

"You love her, and it's real, regardless of whatever else you feel," Merlin said, laughing hoarsely and without joy. "If it's one thing I've learned, it's that love is complicated."

Arthur sighed and nodded. "Then...go on..."

Merlin nodded.

Arthur listened as Merlin explained that the voices he heard were actually in his head, and how he was now sure that Morgana had hidden Mordred and Alvarr. How Morgana had stolen the crystal. How Merlin had really tracked down the camp. How he had betrayed Mordred by helping the knights to capture him, however unsuccessful, and sparking the killer instinct.

He stopped.

"The crystal...it...it's got...well..."

"I told you to watch it that night," Arthur said slowly.

Merlin nodded. "I never handed it over to the guards or went to sleep like I was supposed to. It was calling to me. Screaming at me. And I couldn't help it, I swear, I didn't mean to, but I pulled it out of the bag, I touched it, and..."

"And?" Arthur prompted.

Merlin sighed. "The most powerful weapon of the crystal is knowledge - past, present...and future. And...the future it showed would only ever be a possibility - until it came to pass, but then it was the present, or past, not future, and-"

"What did you see?"

"...the dragon attacking Camelot," Merlin admitted softly.

Arthur's jaw clenched. "Continue."

And Merlin did. He talked about how, when they came to the sleeping city, he went down to see the dragon - but this time, it made Merlin swear to free him. How he tried to go without killing Morgana. How he did so, anyway - with the very poison he just tried to use on himself.

Arthur slipped a hand into his pocket, where the vial for the poison lay.

It was excruciating to listen to Merlin's account of events - of Morgana as she drank the poison, as she started to choke, of how Merlin turned to glance and she knew it was him and how he bent down to hold her, wanting to give her this much in her last moments of life, of her trying to struggle, then being too weak to fight and laying there, anguish in her eyes as she realized she was going to die. How she lost consciousness just as Morgause barged in. The bargain he made with Morgause...

Merlin stopped, and Arthur couldn't be more grateful.

Merlin was still crying.

"She's probably alive," Merlin said, after a long pause. He did sound relieved about it. His tears stopped. His voice, now practically a whisper, still wavered.

"...and Balinor?" Arthur asked.

Merlin swallowed. "The day we left, Gaius told me...Balinor was my father."

As the truth of that hit home, Merlin's actions started to make so much more sense, his quietness on the trip, the way he acted with the man...

...the way he acted when Balinor...when his father died.

The realization that Merlin had been grieving for his father, who sacrificed his life for Merlin's, hit Arthur home in the same spot as the thought that he killed his own mother, and suddenly, he didn't give a damn, anymore.

He got up, rounded the table corner, and pulled Merlin up and into his embrace, a hand curling around Merlin's head and pressing Merlin close to him, pressing Merlin's face down to his neck.

"I won't let you be alone," Arthur said in Merlin's ear.

"Yes, you will," Merlin said, voice louder now that they were close. "I was the one to take on the dragon - and I let him live. He's still alive, out there, somewhere-"

Involuntarily, Arthur felt himself stiffen, and Merlin, sensing this, pulled away.

"...we're the last of our kinds," Merlin said softly. "If he's gone, the balance of magic may reach a tipping point that could...I couldn't kill him."

And Arthur couldn't kill Merlin.

Merlin trembled from his admission, and likely exhaustion as well, and fear, and...Arthur could think of a bunch of reasons for Merlin shaking worse than a leaf in the wind.

Pulling Merlin close again, he said, "You are an idiot - I'm still here."

~*~

That was Merlin's breaking point.

When he was pressed flush against Arthur's front, his neck bent, his face in Arthur's shoulder, and Arthur's in his, a great, wrecking sob escaped him, and then another, and another, and-

He didn't know how long they stood there. He could feel Arthur, his mouth pressed against Merlin's neck as he sobbed, because Freya and Morgana and Gaius and his father were innocent and Merlin wasn't and the dragon was hurt and everything, everything, everything was just...

Arthur never said a word, and neither did Merlin. They held each other tightly, needing simply to feel that they weren't alone.

He managed to get his sobs down, eventually, to dry shaking in Arthur's arms. When that happened, Arthur simply pulled Merlin with him, landing sideways on the bed, both men still clutching onto each other - for after everything they have been through, they were anything but boys.

Arthur reached into his pocket when Merlin finally calmed down, and Merlin's eyes drifted down to see his vial in Arthur's hand.

"Promise me you will never hold any more secrets, hold anything else, inside yourself? Promise me this won't happen again?" Arthur pleaded against the top of Merlin's head.

Merlin knew he was shaking again. Reaching a hand down, he curled his fingers around the vial, lifting it up, before wrapping his arms around Arthur again.

He pressed his own lips to Arthur's neck and said simply, "Yeah."

He didn't let go of the vial.

But neither did he didn't let go of Arthur.

~Fin~