A/N: This one shot has no specific time frame apart from it being after season 4. It's for the reader to decide whether Arthur knows Merlin's secret or not, works both ways. Enjoy! Please Review!

Arthur stared at his manservant's quaking form on the ground watching as he moaned and his fists clenched and unclenched continually.

"What's wrong with him?" Gwen asks eventually from beside him startling Arthur who hadn't known she was even awake. He follows her gaze back to the writhing Merlin.

"Nightmare." Arthur explains quietly.

"Why haven't you woken him?" Gwen exclaims rather, Arthur thinks, louder than is strictly necessary. Gwen didn't often accompany him on his journeys but the royal couple and Sir Gawain had decided to accompany Merlin on a trip back to his home village of Ealdor to visit his mother and to get away. The two royals had simply sought a reprieve from the insanity of their lives while Gawain had insisted he must 'meet the woman who raised such a treasured member of their official, unofficial, boys club'.
Arthur had almost forgotten that Gwen's usual absence from their journey's outside the castle meant she had little experience when it came to dealing with Merlin's nightmares.

"There's no point. We wake him and he won't go back to sleep, it's better for him to get whatever sleep he can." Arthur explained tiredly. He scrubbed at his eyes and looked over to his wife who had a look of confusion countering her angelic face.

"How often does this happen?" she asks her voice little more than a hoarse whisper. Arthur shrugs. He picks up a large stick and begins to poke at the fire.

"Every once in a while. They're usually at their worst after we have a particularly nasty fight of some sort." Arthur tries to explain. "When there's a lot of casualties or… whenever something links back to Morganna." Arthur added with a heavy sigh.

"That's awful." Gwen murmured her hand flying to rest over her heart as if it pained her to hear of her friend's misfortune. "Why don't you just wake him though? It can't be restful for him." She inquires trying desperately to understand.

"We used to, every time he would start but after he wakes up he doesn't fall asleep again. He makes himself ill with exhaustion, it's easier for him to grab the few hours he can." Arthur replies. He looked worriedly over at Merlin as he lets out a particularly loud moan. Gawain stirs from where he lay by Merlin's feet. He sits up his hair sticking in random directions with bedhead.

"He at it again?" Gawain asked looking to Merlin with concern. Arthur chooses not to answer figuring Merlin's current moaning is enough of an indication.

"Can't we do anything?" Gwen half sobs as Merlin lets out a cry of what could only be pain, his face scrunched up against whatever horror he was seeing. As if to answer Merlin suddenly let out an agonized scream ripped from deep inside his throat.

"Arthur?" Gawain asked quickly stumbling to his feet. Arthur was to his feet just as quickly.

"Wake him up!" Arthur ordered loudly over another one of Merlin's screams. Gwen was sobbing openly while both Gawain and Arthur begun shaking Merlin's shoulder's, calling his name to wake him. Merlin sat bolt upright another scream echoing around the clearing before slowly dying down as his glassy eyes roamed around the clearing. He looked to Gawain then to Gwen and finally his gaze shifted to Arthur who was staring at his friend uneasily. Merlin had, had nightmares before but none that had him screaming in apparent agony.

"She's not- She's fine- I-" Merlin stumbled over the words even as tears began to leak from his eyes.

"Oh Merlin!" Gwen cried, leaping up from where she sat to tackle her friend into a hug. Merlin wrapped his arms tightly around her and sobbed silently into her shoulder, his frame shaking as he did so. Arthur and Gawain sat crouched where they'd been before Merlin woke up looking completely lost. Merlin eventually pulled away from Gwen, quickly getting to his feet before anyone could think to stop him. He stumbled his way over to the small stream that had made them choose this clearing in the first place. Kneeling down he splashed water along his face, washing away the tear tracks and sweat from his face.

"Arthur! Go talk to him!" Gwen hissed to her husband. Arthur gave her a look that could only relay one message, 'why me?' Gwen gave him a scarily good impression of Gaius' eyebrow that had Arthur scrambling quickly to his feet to do his wife's bidding. Arthur walked to the stream and crouched down beside his manservant.

"You alright?" Arthur asked. Yes, he knew it was a lousy question because quite clearly he was not but he hadn't known how to start the conversation and it had been the first thing to pop into his head.

"Mm, yeah fine. I-I had a- a-" Merlin trailed off gesturing his hand to Arthur.

"A nightmare?" Arthur suggested. Merlin nodded his head with a rather disgusted look on his face.

"Makes it sound so childish, doesn't it? Nightmare." Merlin muttered rubbing his hand through his hair. Arthur looked over to his friend and had to do a double take. When had Merlin started looking so old? Arthur found himself studying his friend closely trying to discern exactly what had changed on the still rather boyish face to make it have aged so. Finally he decided it was the eyes. Merlin had the eyes of a man triple his age. They gave off the impression he was a man who'd seen far too much and lost things Arthur would hardly be able to comprehend. Arthur gulped to clear his throat not liking how the revelation of Merlin's aged look had left something stuck there.

"I suppose it does in a way-" Here Merlin snorted and Arthur paused so his next words would have the weight he wanted "-but you and I both know they're not." Arthur added his voice heavy. Merlin looked over to him with a look Arthur had seen on many a battle hardened Knight. A look of a man haunted by the past. "There is nothing childish in a man being haunted in his dreams. Dreams are when we are at our most vulnerable. Having bad dreams is not a measurement of a man's mettle." Arther told him solemly, his eyes boring into the intense gaze of his friend. "It is important to remember that, that is all they are in the end, you know that right? Just nightmares. In the end you always wake up." Arthur told him.

"What do you do when you open your eyes but you never do wake up?" Merlin asked brokenly. Arthur considered this for a moment.

"That's what your friends are for Merlin. You lean on us and trust that we'll help you wake." Arthur put his hand on Merlin's shoulder giving it a squeeze before letting it drop, feeling awkward. "We can't do that though, Merlin, we can't bring you out of your nightmares, if we don't know what we're fighting." Arthur added as an afterthought.

"I'm so tired, Arthur. So very, very tired." Merlin muttered rubbing his eyes now. Arthur rested a hand on his friend's shoulder this time with more confidence.

"Then let me help." Arthur pleaded. Merlin let out a sigh, closed both his eyes tightly and nodded his head shakily. "What did you dream about tonight?" Arthur asked softly.

"I- Morganna was there, the old Morgana, a-and she was yelling, screaming, at me." Merlin admitted his voice barely above a whisper. Arthur nodded having expected this as a likely nightmare Merlin had regularly, it plagued Arthur often enough. He opened his mouth to respond but Merlin cut him off, surprising Arthur by offering up more information. His eyes remained tightly shut the entire time.
"She would demand to know why I hadn't helped her. Why I'd abandoned her. I'd beg for her to understand but she just kept asking. 'Why Merlin? WHY?'" He spat out. Arthur once again opened his mouth, a reassurance on the tip of his tongue ready to roll off, when Merlin kept going, once more cutting Arthur off. Merlin had finally opened his eyes and he slashed a hand through the air in anger as he explained. "Then she'd put her head back and laugh at me. Tell me I'd finally accomplished what I'd set out for, she'd remind me that you were king and then-" Merlin broke off to take a shaky breath his anger gone. "Then she'd ask me was it worth it all. And- and I'd be back with them, I'd watch them all die over and over again-" Merlin admitted his voice going husky, tears gathering in his eyes yet he refused to let them shed. "And I- I'd realize that I don't think it was. It was never worth the lives." Merlin let out a half sob at the end as tears finally begin slipping in earnest down his cheeks. Arthur stayed silent as he silently respected how much that final admission had cost his friend.
"When I wake up, nothing's changed. They're still dead and it's still my fault." Merlin choked out trying and failing to keep the break out of his voice. Arthur looked back to the water and watched the moon twinkle in its reflection.

"When I first became a knight and started coming on patrols we came across a village being raided by bandits. We obviously attacked and fought off the bandits killing most of them. We made a mistake though, we'd run into the village without thinking of those that would get caught in the midst. A lot of the villagers were cut down in the fighting. The older knights on the patrol, they thought it was a lesson we younger knights needed to learn. That we couldn't just run into battle with a half-formed plan and no care for the consequence. They made us gather up the bodies of all the villagers." Arthur paused to check Merlin was listening and was vageuly happy to see he was. "For months after I was plagued with nightmares. Every time I closed my eyes I'd see their faces, begging for me to protect them, but I couldn't." Arthur gulped down the hurt dredging these memories up was causing him. "That's the thing, Merlin, we can't go back in time. We can't change what's happened, who's died or the choices we made." Arthur finished. He waited for Merlin to look at him and ask the question he knew he would.

"So what do we do?"

"We move on. We focus on the now, on those that are still alive and what we can do at this moment. We can remember those lost and we can mourn them but then we have to pick ourselves up and live for them." Arthur told him quietly but earnestly. "As for whether it's worth it…" Arthur trailed off with a heavy sigh. "Many a man have driven themselves to insanity asking that question, but no matter how many times you ask or how you ask it, it still happened. And that is something we can never change, my friend, no matter how hard we wish we could."

Merlin was silent for the longest time and Arthur simply allowed him his privacy, not even glancing over to him.

"I-I think I'll go and get some more sleep." Merlin announced eventually his voice hesitant but less hollow then before. Arthur couldn't help the smile that curved the edges of his mouth. Merlin stood and Arthur got to his feet with him. Pausing brielf, Merlin turned to look at Arthur. "Thank you," He said, quiet yet earnest. In response, Arthur merely offered a nod. The two walked back to the camp side by side. Merlin settled himself back onto his bedroll. After murmuring a few assurances to Gawain that he was fine again and for him not to worry, Merlin let his eyes drift shut. It took some time but eventually Arthur spied the servant's breathing slow considerably.

"Thank you, sire." Gawain said shocking Arthur with both the proper address and the sincerity behind his words. Arthur nodded to him and Gawain returned the nod before the knight lay down on his own bedroll, though Arthur could tell the knight was not sleeping but instead watching the manservant's peaceful slumber.

"You did a good thing, Arthur." Gwen whispered to him taking her hand in his own. Arthur returned her smile and could not help himself from silently agreeing with his queen.