Not Now

Summary: Modern AU. A car collision results in the death of Merlin's beloved Freya, and Arthur just can't seem to remember anything.

Rating: M

Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin.

"Freya?" Merlin gasped out, voice sounding high and pinched. He choked in the smoke that surrounded him, obscured his vision. He tried to move, but something restrained him tightly, too tightly, so tightly that he was unable to breathe.

He struggled desperately, ears ringing and eyes stinging. It was getting hot, but the smoke was finally clearing. Merlin painfully turned his head—his neck felt wrung and raw—and saw the silhouette of his fiancée in the passenger seat. Her head hung low, dark ringlets obscuring her face.

"Freya!"

No response.

There was a clamor outside, people shouting and sirens wailing. Someone was trying to open his door, but the light post the car was bent around prevented it. The passenger side could not be opened, either; the metal was crumpled like a sheet of paper. The result of the collision, Merlin suddenly remembered.

Everything hurt. He couldn't breathe.

Freya wasn't moving.

"Freya!" he sobbed, on the verge of passing out. He could not lost consciousness, not now. He needed to stay awake—that much he knew, being a med student.

Someone was at his window, talking to him, but he couldn't focus on her. He had eyes only for his still and silent fiancée. He tried to reach out to shake her, to feel her pulse, something, but then he knew no more.

Arthur fumbled in his pocket, searching for his car keys. "C'mon," he mumbled, bleary-eyed. "C'mon…Ah." A lazy smile grace his lips as he discovered them, and he attempted to put the correct one into the lock. He missed, adjusted, and then missed again.

His smile disappeared. "Bloody foreign cars," he muttered irritably.

He tried once more, and succeeded in unlocking the car. The amiable, self-pleased smile returned, and Arthur clumsily climbed into his sleek red Porsche. He'd just come from Gwaine's twenty-first birthday party, and there had been loads of alcohol. Gwaine always had tons of liquor in his house, and also happened to be a very generous host. Though they didn't always get along, they were quite good friends.

Gwaine had offered to let him stay the night, but Arthur had to work in the morning at his father's company and so needed to get home. It was nearly midnight already, and he would loved to have stayed later. Unfortunately, he couldn't.

Arthur, after several attempt, managed to start the car and turn on the headlights. Then he pulled onto the abandoned road. He maneuvered the Porsche rather well, all things considered. He remained on his side, was able to see straight enough, and, best of all, there was no one else out driving so late on a Monday.

Driving was a very lulling action at night, Arthur had thought drunkenly. He giggled, remembering that when he had been a small, fussy child his nanny had taken him for drives to calm him. But now he was quite an adult, and didn't fall asleep when being driven around, let alone driving himself.

Or so he thought.

Less than a mile from his flat, Arthur's chin nodded towards his chest, and his eyes drooped closed. He didn't stop at the intersection. Nor did he wake during the collision.

When Merlin woke, it was with a heavy, stuffy head. He half wanted to roll over and go back to sleep, but there was something that pressed him to wakefulness. Midterms? Freya's parents coming to visit? Gaius needing him to drive him to the clinic because he's too tired to walk to the tube?

No, something much more serious.

He forced his eyelids to peel open, blinking against the almost harsh light. Merlin grunted in pain as the light pierced into his brain.

"Merlin?" gasped a soft, familiar voice.

He turned toward it and slit his eyes open again. Not Freya, but his mother was there, all the way from Ireland. Alarmed, he realized that there was only one reason why she would have flown all the way out here in short notice, and look so awfully scared and sad at once. He was in the hospital.

It all came back to him: car accident. He was hit while crossing an intersection, hard enough to send his own car careening into a lamp pole. Freya was too still once everything had settled.

"F—Freya," he croaked out, now fully awake. His wide blue eyes begged her to tell him that she was all right, to move aside and show him that she was resting peacefully in the other bed, or that she was in surgery—something.

Hunith's lower lip trembled. "Oh, Merlin," she whispered brokenly. She engulfed her only son in a gentle embrace, sobbing for his loss.

It took a moment for Merlin to comprehend, for the shock to wear off. Then he, too, cried in despair. "No," he uttered, and in that single word was encompassed the unfairness of it all, the empty hole that had been torn in his heart and would never be mended.

When Arthur woke, it was to the rattling of the jail cell door being opened by a stern-faced policeman. He sat up, nursing his aching head, and squinted at the newcomers and his surroundings.

"Wha—?" he uttered.

His father, Uther Pendragon, entered the cell with brisk steps, his fists clenched at his sides. He looked so severe that Arthur was almost frightened and wished Morgana were present to cushion the verbal blow that was sure to come.

"Are you all right?" Uther asked, though his tone conveyed no affection or concern whatsoever.

Arthur stood respectfully, and nodded. Obviously he'd been arrested for drunk driving, and was now in trouble with both the law and his father. Damn. He hoped his car was all right.

Slap!

The younger Pendragon was suddenly sent reeling back onto the cot, hand automatically coming up to his now tender, reddening cheek. He stared up at his father in shock, now completely sober. Uther lowered his hand and closed it into a fist once more, looking angrier than Arthur had ever seen him.

"Come along," he snapped. "I've paid your bail. You're lucky I've done as much as that for you."

Arthur pushed himself to his feet again and obediently followed, feeling quite out of sorts. His father had never before laid a hand on him, not even after he, Leon, and Gwaine had snuck into the girl's changing room in high school and snapped photos of Gwen Smith. And to top it all off, the sheer disappointment in his father's tone was enough to send him cowering under a rock.

When they exited the police station, Arthur couldn't help the groan that was elicited. It was too bright outside. He was going to say as much, but he was cut short when his father said, "You certainly deserve what you're feeling, Arthur. I cannot express how disappointed I am in you. Nothing you do will be able to fix this, but I am taking you to apologize and to face what you've done."

"Apologize?" Arthur repeated incredulously. "Did I hit someone?"

Uther halted so suddenly that his son nearly rammed into his back. He turned around, looking so shocked and appalled that Arthur had to force himself to not back away under the harsh glare. "You don't remember," he breathed. "Arthur, you struck another vehicle. You killed one person and severely injured another."

Arthur stumbled back. "No," he denied, shaking his head.

His father looked almost pityingly. "You did," he said more softly. "You will be charged with driving under the influence and manslaughter."

Merlin felt numb, empty. Though he was grateful for his mother's presence, and for Gaius', when he'd come, he couldn't quite bring himself out of his misery. Freya was dead. It was far worse than the death of his runaway father. At first it had hurt, hurt so much he'd wanted to kill himself just so be with her again, but now he felt nothing.

Gaius had convinced his mother to come with him to go get something to eat from the cafeteria, at least, and Merlin had insisted as well. Since then, he'd been lying in his bed, swathed in blankets that covered his bodily wounds from him, and desperately trying to forget what had happened. It was all too easy to imagine that Freya had gone with Gaius and Hunith for food, but then a moment later the full force of her death would hit him again, and tears would pour relentlessly until he'd get them under control again. After the third time he'd resolutely decided to pretend that Freya never existed.

There was a quiet, hesitant knock at the door. Merlin knew it wasn't his family or a nurse, and probably not one of his friends—he hadn't gotten around to telling them yet. Dreading that it was perhaps Freya's family, he slowly looked up.

It was a blonde man. He looked exhausted and, frankly, rather frightened and unsure. As though he wasn't supposed to be there, and he knew that Merlin knew it as well as he. Merlin said nothing. He waited for the other to speak.

"Hi," he blurted.

Merlin slowly blinked as his mind processed the greeting. His brow creased slightly. "Hello," he responded, quiet and subdued. He was still trying to discern the reason that this stranger was here.

"I…May I come in?"

Merlin nodded his assent, albeit reluctantly. He was beginning to suspect who this person was.

"You…Are you…?" The man looked frustrated with his lack of eloquence.

Merlin didn't grace the half-formed question with a response. "I know who you are," he whispered, struggling to keep his emotions in check. "And I can't talk to you. Not now."

The man looked stricken, for a moment, but then swallowed thickly and nodded. "Right, of course," he said, sounding a bit choked up. He stood and made his way to the door. But there he paused and turned back. "I just wanted to say that I'm so, so sorry. I never meant for—"

"Please," Merlin said. "Just go."

Arthur nodded and left, choking back tears. His father was waiting for him at the end of the hall. They turned to leave together, and passed Gaius and Hunith on their way out. No words were exchanged—they were strangers.

"Arthur," Uther began.

"Not now," Arthur begged, pressing a knuckle to his eye. "Please, not now."

END.