Chapter Five

They wake up at the first sight of dawn, have their breakfasts and continue their journey. Merlin seemed happy, a smile on his face as the horse galloped on and he bounced on the saddle. He was finally looking forward to seeing his mother, his people, again, and that was another step forward according to Arthur in the progress towards Merlin's recovery.

Their gazes met for a moment as their horses walked on, hooves tapping against the ground. Arthur's lips turned up a little, just a little, but the fondness in his eyes crinkled the corners. Merlin grinned back, and suddenly, the panging weight inside of him was back. It was like he had already watched him go. Like he was already too far away from him, with miles of a forest in between. The longing for his friend's shy smiles, his genuine, grateful thank-yous, the dragons he made in the embers of fire that was no longer discomforting, but rather endearing and wondrous (always filling him with such awe, at how beautiful magic can truly be when it wasn't used for evil), the heavy sadness of never being able to see him as much as he wished anymore.

"You seem troubled, Arthur," Merlin said, his grin now gone and his expression instead furrowed with worry. "Is something wrong?"

Arthur took a low sigh, shook his head and then looked up at him, smiling reassuringly. "No, it's alright. I'm alright."

If his gaze lingered on Merlin for a little while, full of sadness and longing for his friendship, Merlin didn't say anything about it.

...

Ealdor wasn't too far off from where they were at that moment. Merlin was besetted with all kinds of emotions as they travelled through the forests, under the trees, leaves crunching beneath the hooves.

Anxiety and excitement balled up in his stomach like a stone, swirling and twisting. Happiness and joy that made him feel light and afloat and tugged at his cheeks every once in a while into a large, tight grin that almost hurt. The furious, ticklish sensation made him want to spin around and dance and laugh as loud and hard as he could, like a bloody mad man, but he couldn't help it, and he almost felt like he could cry from all the emotions overcoming him at once.

But the sorrow. The sorrow and longing and guilt. They were always there too. Every time he looked at Arthur, at the side of his face, his blue eyes that caught his own every once in a while, they were there, like a tightness, a sickness, a heavy boulder on his chest, his abdomen.

And sometimes he was half-tempted to tell Arthur to turn back now, to go with him back to Camelot. Nobody would really know him there anyway, because nobody saw him that night other than Arthur and that knight with him (but chances are, he wouldn't remember him. He was always a nameless face for everyone. Why should this be any different?) The Bounty hunter was gone, so there wouldn't be any danger or risk.

But then he remembered his mother. His beautiful, beloved mother, and he knew he had to see her, tell her he was okay. It had been too long though, and he felt like he was going to meet her for the first time.

The pieces of her memories were too unclear and vague for him to really imagine; the brown colour of her hair, the kindness of her face, her tenderness of her voice, her loving touch. The little things he knew of her were so far away that they felt like they were nothing but dreams. Like how she used to sing him to sleep (he didn't remember her voice, nor did he remember the tune or the words of the song, but he knew that it always soothed him). Like how she took care of his cuts when he fell. How she comforted him after nightmares. Made him breakfast in the morning with what little they had. Kissed his forehead every night and morning. He memorized most of the things she had done for him when he thought he was beginning to lose them so he wouldn't forget every part of her, but they were just knowledge now. They weren't memories anymore. The details, the images and the colours had disappeared long ago. But still, they were all enough to make him love her, miss her all those years after, want to see her again.

"We're almost there, Merlin," Arthur announced.

...

Merlin was almost paralyzed with all his feelings and uncertainty by the time they reached the village.

He didn't know why he was so afraid, so unsure. It was his mother. She wouldn't reject him. He knew his fear was irrational and unreasonable, but he couldn't stop it. He watched all the small houses that people shared (he remembered that now), all the people that seemed so familiar, a little nagging feeling, and yet, so strange and new. He watched the farmers growing crops, the mothers and fathers keeping an eye on the children playing, the women and men chatting all around.

"Merlin?"

Merlin startled, coming back to himself. He almost forgot he existed as he watched them all, so lost in the view of a place that was meant to be his home. But it didn't feel right. It didn't feel like home. It didn't feel like he belonged here. It didn't feel like it did with Arthur. He knew it could just be because he only arrived here and it had been too long, but something inside him told him it was more than that.

He felt something land on his wrist.

Merlin blinked and slowly glanced down from his horse to see Arthur standing beside him, staring up at him in concern.

"Are you alright?" he asked him softly, and Merlin. Merlin felt something rise in his chest at that voice, that face full of tender care and memories (his best memories in a long, long time), something deep and heavy and painful. The pressure of tears built behind his burning eyes, a stone stuck in his throat, and he tried to chase it all away as he nodded and climbed off the saddle with the help of Arthur's arm around him (his injuries were still there, however trite they've grown from years and years of endless pain) and tried not to think of the fact that he'd barely get to hear that voice and see that face again.

Merlin's feet touched the ground, his arms retracting from his friend's neck, but his gaze wouldn't leave him. It seemed unimaginable to have him out of sight for months, to see only see him once or twice a year. He didn't know if he'd survive that long without him. It didn't seem like he would, because Arthur wasn't even gone, and he already felt like he was dying, his chest ripping apart like paper. It was needy and messed up, but Arthur was home. He hadn't had a home since he could remember. Only cells and cages and beatings and torture.

Arthur held onto his shoulder, gave him a gentle, encouraging (almost brittle) smile and led him towards the village.

Arthur was the one who had given him hope, a reason to live, a new and better life in those caves for those few days, who had stuck around even after he found out what he was, not a single change the next day in the way he saw him. He had saved him, loved him like he was his brother, fed him and gave him candles and clothes and took care of him and talked to him and protected him from the Bounty Hunter. He had stopped wanting to die because Arthur decided that he was worth something, made him feel like he was, and that had made a world of difference to him. And that difference would stay with him forever.

How was he supposed to let go of that? How was he supposed to watch him leave now and carry on with his life?

"I can't do this," Merlin said, a breath of a whisper, as he stopped walking, his fist reaching up and grabbing Arthur's shirt.

He tried to catch air in his slightly uncomfortable, smothered lungs, then turned to Arthur and swallowed, his eyes wide and scared as they fixated on the ground. "I...I can't. I don't want to leave you." I don't want you to leave me.

"Merlin, your mother..." Arthur trailed off unsurely.

"I...I want to see her. I want to meet her," Merlin said, words cracking and strained, swallowing again as he paused and nodded. His grip tightened on his shirt and he sucked in a deep breath. "But... but I want to be with you too."

Merlin lifted his gaze up to him, earnest and huge.

"Your mother hasn't seen you for years, Merlin," Arthur said quietly, not quite able to meet his eyes.

Merlin couldn't give an answer to that, so he bit his trembling lip and nodded shakily again. He let go of Arthur, backed a step, and then exhaled one loaded, heavy breath of an exhausted boy who had been on an endless search for meaning and hope and home, only to lose it all too soon. He turned on his heel and walked, not heeding the tears that broke loose and the burn of Arthur's stare on his back.

...

Merlin went everywhere for her. He went to his old home that suddenly cleared that blurry image of a tiny house in his mind. There were heads turning towards him, question and wonder in all of their expressions. It was a small village, so it wouldn't be hard to recognize a new face.

After being isolated for most of his life, it was hard to communicate with anyone. Comfort and security with any human being was rare. If anything, there were only two people he could remember ever being at ease with. Will and Arthur.

But after minutes of futile searching, he realized he would have to push past this social block and just ask someone.

"Are you looking for somebody, boy?" He nearly flinched, even though it was only the voice of a kind, elderly woman.

He turned his bowed head towards her, fidgeting nervously. "I-I... I'm looking for my mother. H-her... her name is Hunith."

Merlin remembered hours and hours of embedding that name into his memory, falling asleep whispering it to himself, so that he would never forget it. Those were days when he still hoped that he'd get out of there and be be free.

He was glad those hopes came true (and all he could think about was Arthur).

"Hunith?" she repeated, something strange in her tone that Merlin couldn't comprehend. "You're her son?"

Merlin nodded. "I-I was taken by slave traders t-ten years ago. Have you s-seen my mother?" He hated how his voice shook.

"Oh..." she whispered sympathetically. "Oh, my poor boy."

The old woman stepped forward and took his hands in hers, causing Merlin to sneak a glance up before shooting his gaze back down at the ground.

"My boy," she began, her sorrowful voice low in some strange, quiet respect. "Your mother... she has been..." She paused, inhaling a quivering, mournful breath. "She has been gone for the past two years."

"G-gone? Gone where?" Merlin asked, feeling confused at her manner of speaking and her words. He looked up at her, just long enough to catch a small, immensely sad smile.

And he knew.

He knew what she meant. And for a moment, he was selfish enough to hope that there was a mistake, that it wasn't his own mother, but someone else's.

"No, h-her name is Hunith," he repeated brokenly, desperately, but there was barely any sound, far lower than even a whisper, a low air of words from a choked throat. It was too weak, and he was sure the old woman didn't hear it.

"She had brown hair, kind eyes, a tender, beautiful face. I remember, my boy. I remember her too well."

She sighed deeply, squeezing his hands once.

"After you disappeared, she never managed to move on. She withdrew and isolated herself from all of us. She was always seen sitting by herself, and somehow we all knew that she was always asking herself about you. But eight years is too long for anyone who had lost a child and never knew how or why, not even a single answer as to what happened." The old woman tightened her grip on his hands, but he was too distant from his body to feel it. He couldn't think. He couldn't understand what was happening. He tried to, but his mind couldn't process anything.

"She couldn't take the pain of losing you," she quavered, staring down at the ground. "And she hung herself on a tree."

...

"She loved you. She loved you so much, my boy. The rare times she spoke, it was always about you. Always reminiscing about fond memories of you."

It never really sunk in, even as he mindlessly thanked the woman and walked away. It was like there was something blocking it from reaching him, from making him truly feel it fully (maybe that was a good thing), something like denial, like this couldn't be happening. Like maybe it was all a dream. He hoped it was.

He didn't feel like himself.

But even then. Even then, his lungs suddenly ache with hunger, because he couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe because she was gone. She was gone, and he didn't say goodbye to her. He didn't get to tell her he loved her. He couldn't breathe because she died by her own hands, because she couldn't take the agony of being without him.

And it made him feel responsible. It made him feel like it was his fault. It made him feel like he should be the one dead. If only he hadn't been out there in the forest alone that day. If only... if only he had done better to escape. If only... if only...

...

Arthur nearly toppled over when he turned away from stroking his good horse's hair and something slammed into him, knocking the air out of his lungs. For a second, he went on defense and almost attacked the source, until he smelt Merlin's familiar, unique scent that was also blood and sweat.

Merlin's arms wrapped around his neck, like a small kid. He always had such a childlike vulnerability in the way he acted and spoke, and he wondered if it was because he never got to grow up like he should have had.

"Merlin? How did it go?" Arthur asked, smiling lightly. Surely, meeting his mother must have made him rejoice.

But Merlin was shaking in his arms, and there was something about the way his breaths were shuddering and restrained in his ears, the way his chest wouldn't rise and fall in a natural, easy rhythm, stuttering and rigid, like he was trying to hold something back. Or like he couldn't breathe.

"Merlin? Did something happen?" he questioned, and the worry began to gnaw at his insides.

Silence.

"Sh's... sh-sh's go..." he choked off with a hard sob. Merlin's speech was broken, stammering, trembling. "Sh's gone." It was a shaky whisper, almost soundless, only a few fragments of the words heard clearly.

But the desperate grief that was in the way he tightened his grip around him and trembled against him, the agony inside that came through everything he was right now, the suffocating need for his mother that almost made Arthur feel suffocated.

Arthur didn't have to ask what he meant.

"I don't... I don't 'member what she looked li'e," he murmured against him, frantic and incoherent, the pronunciations running into each other like beads on a necklace. "I don't 'member her an'... an' now I never will."

Arthur's heart clenched as Merlin let out a harsh, gasping sob against his shoulder and a strangled whimper, his knees slowly sinking from beneath him as if his heart's grief was too heavy for his feet, as if he couldn't stand up anymore. He went down along with him, held him as he cried and curled his fingers loosely in his hair, and hated himself for not knowing what to say.

...

They set camp for the night.

Merlin hadn't cried again since they left Ealdor. Instead, he had sat on the saddle, stared ahead through vacant eyes like there was nothing to look forward to anymore, and never spoken a single word. Arthur hadn't either, because what could he possibly have said to make this better?

Now Merlin was lying on the other side of the fire, still with that destroyed, empty face. His features weren't cold or hard, neither was it relaxed and calm. There was just nothing.

There wasn't anything he could say, none that he knew of. He had learned that too soon as they journeyed back towards Camelot. Every comforting word he could tell Merlin seemed to be too small for all the anguish he had gone through.

So he didn't.

Instead, he crawled over to him, slid down to lie on his side behind him and fit himself around him, locked an arm over his waist and clutched his hand and buried his nose in the back of his neck. Merlin stayed silent, stayed still, barely a twitch of reaction. But somehow, Arthur knew this was right. This was what he needed right now.

He was proven correct when Merlin twisted around in his grasp after a while so that he was facing him, burrowing closer against his chest and resting his forehead against his heartbeats. Arthur tucked the blankets around him more snugly, closed his eyes and breathed in his hair.

"Thank you," Merlin said softly. They were the same words Arthur had heard, over and over and over, every day and night he visited him. For some inexplicable reason, he couldn't feel that he deserved it this time.

Arthur smiled weakly, even though Merlin couldn't see it.

"Thank you for saving me. For being my savior, my friend. My brother."

...

The morning sunrise cast an enthralling, beautiful orange glow on the skies above the albicant castle, golden light catching on the majestic towers looming over the ground. Even in the midst of his crippling grief, his exhausted, itchy, burning eyes, his gravitated, crumbling, aching heart, Merlin couldn't stop himself from noticing it. It was a hopeful sight of the beginning of another day, like a promise of the beginning of a new life.

It was a little funny, how, the last time he arrived here and saw this castle, he thought he was staring at the place of his death, the last city he'd ever see before his eyes closed forever. He thought he'd leave this world, forgotten and unloved.

But things never went the way he expected. He had never expected spending a lonely, excruciating life as a slave ten years ago, and he had never expected the end to be the start of something better. He knew there would be horrible days. Horrible days when he would feel trapped and broken because of the nightmares of his past and when he would be on his knees from the agony of losing the one person he left behind and dreamed of seeing all this time. He knew how loss was, how it shredded you from the inside out and burned the pain of it into your very soul. He knew that it'd be a long while before he could think of his life in years and not be overwhelmed by the deep desolation and grayness because they'd all have an emptiness to it, as if there was something missing. He had lost too much to ever forget that feeling. He had lost himself through everything, his dignity, his self-esteem, his memories, his hopes and dreams. He had lost Will and he had lost his mother twice.

But...

But he glanced at Arthur, and he couldn't help but marvel at the way destiny works in such mysterious, unfathomable, phenomenal ways.

Now this was going to be his home. His hope. His meaning.

And here, as he watched Arthur alongside him, he wasn't sure if he was only thinking about Camelot.

Author's Note: Hi, you lovely readers! So this is the last chapter. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to write an epilogue or leave the rest to your imagination. But in my mind, the story sort of goes the same way as in the show, with Merlin becoming Arthur's manservant and saving Camelot, except that their relationship is different as they met under another set of circumstances that only served to bring them closer and allowed them to easily express their friendship (or love, if you'd prefer. I know there are some who'd rather see it that way rather than deep friendship, although it was meant to be the latter for me :)), and also, Arthur knows about Merlin's magic. (Hm... I think I'd like to explore that relationship post-this-chapter, maybe fast-forward to a few years later?)

This was intended to be a short story. I hope it's not too much of a disappointment that I ended it too soon with less adventure and more angst/bromancey stuff. I consider myself an emotional writer more than anything, in the way that I like exploring emotions and experiences and relationships and shiz like that. But there's another reason. I have no freaking idea what has been happening, but for the past two bloody years, my creativity juices/muse have been practically dead, so I can't conjure many twists and turns and if I can, I end up writing them in an extremely amateur, absurd way that doesn't satisfy me (nor will it satisfy anyone) at all.

Anyways, I love you all so much. *wraps octopus arms all around you* Thank you for sticking with me all this time, through this journey, short as it is. And I hope you stay for all the other ones. *hugs* Thank you for all your support in each of the tags, your encouragements and love in every review, your loyalty, your patience and time. I can't ever convey fully how much I'm grateful for all of it, except to thank you for it every opportunity I get. Thank you, thank you, thank you! I love you. Each one of you are awesome! You're unique and amazing and here to fill a space on this earth that would've been empty without you. Don't ever let anyone make you believe otherwise. I just wanted you to know that, because there are way too many of us hurting in this world, and it's not fair because a lot of them don't deserve a single bit of it.

Smile and have a great year!