You Can Never Go Home

Where once was light, now darkness falls

Don't say goodbye! Don't say I didn't try

Three weeks after Gwen is crowned queen of Camelot, Merlin comes back.

It is Gwen who sees him first, she who was his first friend in Camelot. She is sitting on the side of the great palace steps at dusk, staring at the appearing stars and wondering not for the first time how she can do this alone, when her eye catches someone skulking quietly along the side of the courtyard.

It takes her a second to be sure it is Merlin, not just an illusion she's dreaming up, and then she scrambles to her feet and dashes across the courtyard, utterly disregarding queenly dignity. Almost before Merlin realizes she's there, she's flung her arms tightly around him and is holding on tight, sobbing hard and gasping his name.

And then Merlin is holding her back, his arms tight and close around her, as though she's the only thing holding him together right now (and maybe he's the only thing keeping her from breaking at all the cracks), and she can feel him shudder with a few deep sobs.

But he's back, he's come home, and Gwen, who had been desperately afraid that she had lost both husband and friend, is smiling shakily as they pull back to stare at each other.

Her first thought is that Merlin looks terrible.

He's always been on the skinny side, but just now under her arms he was far too thin, and she wonders when he last ate. He's dead white in the twilight, heavy shadows lying under his eyes, which are red with weeping.

"Oh, Merlin," Gwen says thickly, because she can't find anything else to say just then.

"I'm sorry," he says suddenly, as though the words have been dammed up in him and he has to let them out. "I'm sorry I couldn't save Arthur, I'm sorry I wasn't there in time, I'm –"

Gwen can't stand it. She places a finger firmly against his lips, hushing him.

"Don't," she says gently. "It wasn't your fault."

Merlin doesn't look like he believes her, not one bit, but he doesn't say anything when she drops her finger, just drops his eyes to his muddy boots.

"I'm glad you've come home," Gwen says sincerely. "Gaius will be very happy to have you back."

"Freya finally made me come back," he says softly, and she has no idea what he means, but she doesn't think he really meant to say that out loud in the first place, so she doesn't ask. "I'm sorry I missed your coronation," he adds after a moment, glancing back up at her.

Gwen tries to smile at him. It comes out all wobbly. "That doesn't matter," she says quietly. "Just stay now, would you?"

He doesn't exactly answer, just bows slightly. "Long live the queen," he whispers.

He says it like a vow, like he is pledging fealty to her, yet also as if it is breaking what is left unbroken of his heart to say it, and without giving her a chance to respond, he slips past her and into the darkening night.

Gwen instinctively glances at the gate. Never before have either Arthur or Merlin come home without the other, and some deeply buried part of her expects Arthur to show up, following Merlin. He has to come home, he has to. Merlin will have brought him home somehow . . .

But the moments slip past, and no one rides into the courtyard. The torches are lit, and still no one comes. Gwen finally turns away, slowly, slowly climbing the stairs.

There was the one time when Arthur had come home without Merlin, she remembers. But he had still ridden out and found Merlin, even if Merlin had been enchanted for a while afterwards. And Arthur during Merlin's absence had been the most miserable Arthur she remembered seeing.

She wonders as she slips through the darkness back into her home if Merlin can live without Arthur ever coming home, or if it will kill him.

These tears you cry are falling rain

For all the lies, the hurt, the pain

Merlin remains a ghost of a shadow around the castle for the next few days, and Gwen hardly gets a chance to talk to him. It makes her feel better, knowing he is there, but she can tell he is grieving and utterly miserable. Gwen wishes he wouldn't blame himself for Arthur's death, as he clearly is, because he will never really be able to heal if he does that. She still grieves Arthur every day, cries herself to sleep every night alone, but at least she treasures the memories she had of him. She hopes Merlin will not taint his own memories with his grief and guilt.

But there is something important she must clear up with Merlin, and she corners him in Gaius's chambers five days after his return. She knows Gaius is out with a patient in the lower village – she saw him leave.

"Merlin," she says quietly, ducking into the chambers she knows so well.

He is sitting by the table, doing nothing, and there is such empty sorrow in his eyes when he glances up at her that she wishes she could somehow take his pain away. The smile he gives her is a pitiful ghost of his old, happy grin.

"Gwen," he says softly.

"We need to talk," she says, sitting down.

He watches her tiredly, waiting for her to go on.

But Gwen doesn't know how to go on. How do you approach a friend you've known for years and tell him you think he's been lying all these years? How do you say that you're pretty sure he's a sorcerer, and that makes so much sense now, and it's alright?

"The sorcerer at Camlann –" she begins, and sees Merlin tense instantly, although whether it's the mention of the sorcerer or the battle, she's not entirely sure. She draws in a deep breath and says the words. "Was it you?"

She waits breathlessly for his answer. She knows what the truth is. Merlin has always been different, but she decided years ago not to press him and to wait for him to tell her what his secret was if he wanted to. He never has, though, and she knows now for the first time who he is; Gaius's words confirmed it, but she will give him the choice now to tell her or not, just like she always has. His answer will not change what she has planned to do, but she longs with every fiber of her being for him to trust her with the truth.

Merlin draws in and breathes out a long, long shuddering breath. Then he nods slowly.

Gwen feels as though a weight has fallen off her shoulders, and she smiles at him, more like her old smile than anything she's given lately. She doesn't stumble all over herself trying to explain that she understands, that she doesn't see him any differently, like she would have once; she doesn't feel like talking much these days. She does reach across the table and grip his hand tightly in hers, and they sit like that for a while, the queen and the sorcerer, both friends and lost and broken together.

And then – "I'm going to repeal the ban on magic."

Gwen says it softly, surely, like the settled fact it is in her mind, but it makes Merlin jump and stare at her, tears gathering in the corners of his eyes.

"You can't do it just for me," he says strongly, but there is uncertainty and the first bit of hope she has glimpsed in him for days flickering in his face.

"I'm not," she replies steadily, meeting his eyes. "The ban is cruel and unfair, and too many innocents have died under it. But you need to help me, Merlin. I need to know how to rewrite the laws."

Merlin stares at her blankly for a long moment, and then, somewhat unexpectedly to Gwen, he utterly breaks down, burying his face in his hands and sobbing. Concerned, she gets up and goes around the table to him, putting her hands on his shoulders, trying to soothe his rough sobs.

Through the tears she can make out broken words. "It should have been Arthur . . ."

She's not sure if it's the loss hitting him again or the fact that he must have yearned for Arthur to accept him as she just had or something else entirely that's hurting him now, but Gwen feels her own eyes fill with tears. She doesn't move until he's wept himself out and is still again. Then she slips quietly away.

At the door she glances back for one last look at her friend, bowed over the table now as he was when she came in. She's not mad at him for all the lies he must have told to cover up the magic over the years – she understands – but it does make her wonder how much of the Merlin she knew was the real Merlin and how much he kept buried and unseen. The man who could unleash those lightning bolts at Camlann was at the very least far more powerful than she had ever dreamed.

Unbidden, their first meeting when he was in the stocks floats into her mind. Apparently he was right – he is a rough, tough, save the world kind of guy, just in disguise.

She wonders as she leaves just how much of who he truly is that disguise has ripped from her friend, just how much the web of lies he has had to spin has broken him.

Gwen wishes she knew how to heal him.

You will weep to be so alone

You are lost, you can never go home

Merlin stays quiet and withdrawn, which is so unnatural for him that it really worries Gwen. Worrying about Merlin is something she can do, something she can maybe help fix, just a little bit. She is throwing herself into her work these days, into strengthening the kingdom after the Saxon attack, into investigating magic and how they can bring it back, into trying to help Merlin. If she's working, she doesn't have to think of Arthur, of how she will never see him again, of how she has lost her husband, lover, confidant, best friend . . .

She still cries when she is alone and no one can see.

Merlin is incredibly busy these days too – she thinks they are both hiding their grief in work. They were both servants together once, after all, even if they are queen and soon-to-be court sorcerer now, and hard work is something of a relief to both of them. Merlin is busy researching everything there is to know about what the kingdom was like when magic was legal and helping her rewrite laws to make sure magic is legal but has safeguards against using it for evil. He is also helping Gaius and fending off the last remnants of Morgana's army and helping out in the stables and the armory and a hundred and one other places. He is clearly running himself ragged; he has permanent dark circles under his eyes now; his cheekbones stick out sharply, and his hair runs long and ragged over the collar of his jacket. His eyes are mostly dull and lifeless; only when she talks to him about the legalization of magic will a faint spark will come back. There are days Gwen fears he will leave Camelot, because here he is continually confronted by the absence of Arthur here, and selfishly she wonders if she will be able to go on if he leaves. She has Leon and Percival, who aren't leaving, of course, and they've been immensely helpful, but Merlin has been her friend since the day she saw him stand up to Arthur for the servant he was bullying and decided she would introduce herself to him, and she feels as if, were she to lose Merlin, she would never be able to carry on being queen.

One night, when they're both bent over layers of parchment, working out one of the laws, she can't stand the uncertainty anymore and says quietly, "You'll stay, won't you?"

Merlin glances up from the lines before him and gives her a rather blank look. "Stay where?" he asks, his voice hoarse from not saying much for a while.

"Here," she says quietly. "In Camelot. Home."

Merlin hesitates, and then his eyes blaze suddenly. "Camelot isn't home anymore," he says fiercely. "Not without Arthur."

Gwen hesitates, uncertain how to say anything to that, but Merlin suddenly explodes, the grief he's been dealing with too much to hold back anymore.

"Arthur was the reason I lived," he bursts out, his voice rough with pain and intense. "He was the reason I had magic! I lived to serve him – it was my destiny to keep him safe, to help him become the greatest king Albion has ever seen. And I was promised – promised – that he would one day legalize magic. I've given up everything to save Arthur – I've lost so many people, failed so many times, protected him from so many things he never knew about. And I had to lie to him, over and over and over, to keep him from knowing who I was. But I failed, Gwen – I failed, and he's dead, and we'll never fulfill our destiny like we were meant to because I failed. He said it himself – for all my magic I couldn't save him. What am I meant to do now? Who am I? There's no purpose, no meaning, for me to have magic, to live, when he's gone."

Merlin drops his head heavily into his hands, breathing hard. Gwen is choking on her tears, because Merlin has made Arthur his life for years now, and his death has broken Merlin as much as it has her.

"They say Arthur is the Once and Future King," he says quietly at last, voice small and still. "I wonder sometimes if I'll live until Arthur comes back. And then I wonder how long that will be, and if I can last until then. But until he comes back, Camelot can never be home."

Gwen swallows hard and says the things she feels when she lies awake late at night and has never said to anyone yet. "I feel like I've lost half of myself too," she says softly. "Arthur has been my hero ever since he came to help us save Ealdor. I waited for him for so long, and we had so little time together. I was happy with him, happier than I've ever been."

She looks down, blinking away tears. "Camelot doesn't feel like home without him to me either," she admits to Merlin. "He's been here in the castle for as long as I've called it home, even if he was a royal prat before you came here. I keep going down a hall and expecting to run into him, and when I don't, I still feel the pain hit me all over again."

Merlin is watching her now, dry-eyed grief in his eyes, quiet and still. Gwen meets his eyes. "But someone has to take up the reins and lead this kingdom, and Arthur left that to me," she says steadily. "I'm carrying on his legacy. I have to make Camelot the great kingdom it should be. I know Arthur should be the one to legalize magic, but since he's not here, I have to do it." Merlin swallows harshly, and Gwen reaches across to lay her hand on his. "You don't have to be here, Merlin, but I don't want to do this without you. Some days I don't think I can without you. You were always my friend, remember?"

Merlin smiles, just a little, but it's a truer smile than she's seen on his face since he came back. "I'll stay, Gwen," he says quietly. "For you, I'll stay."

So in the end I'll be what I will be

A loyal friend was ever there for me

Gwen has been keeping her secret close to her heart ever since she realized it. Not even Gaius knows, though Gwen is aware she should tell him soon. She's not sure when the suspicion first started coming over her, but she knew it for truth during one of those dreadful days when she stood by the window watching and waiting for Arthur to come back from Camlann. At that moment, she went to her room and cried, in despair because she was starting to doubt she would be able to tell Arthur, and in desperate hope because Arthur's death would not be the end.

Since then she has told no one, because Arthur would have been the first one she would have told, and it feels like a betrayal to tell anyone else when she can never tell him now. But the time is creeping closer that she needs to start telling people before it becomes evident, and Merlin is the only one who could possibly hear first. He has been there with her and Arthur since the beginning; he was the one who sent Arthur to stay in her house during that tournament, which led to their first kiss; he was the one who fought for them to stay together even when they had both given up on each other. He deserves to know.

She finds him in the dusk, in the twilight of the dying day, like the day he slipped back into Camelot. He's up on the battlements of the castle, staring out over the country. He doesn't look like he's run himself quite as ragged as he did before – their heartfelt conversation when he vowed to stay has helped them both a bit – but he is still too pale and far too thin, even if he doesn't look as though he hadn't slept in weeks now. Gwen slips to his side and leans against the wall by him. He acknowledges her with a glance but doesn't say anything. For a very long moment, neither does she.

Then – "Merlin, I have something to tell you." Gwen says it softly, hushed, hopeful.

He turns to look at her. "You sound like it's a good thing," he says, ever so slightly teasing.

Gwen gives him a ghost of a smile back and reaches out to take his hand. At this moment, this fragile moment of telling him that a piece of Arthur still lives on in her, words fail her, and she simply takes his hand and lays it on her dress over her stomach.

Merlin glances back and forth from it to her, frowning just a bit, looking as though he may get the sense of it but afraid to say so. For some reason, Gwen laughs at his expression, and her tongue is loosed.

"Merlin," she says softly, "I'm pregnant."

For the first time since Camlann, Merlin's old broad smile flashes across his face in all its glory. He curls his fingers gently around her stomach, looking down at it with a worshipful expression.

"Arthur," he chokes out. "Arthur's baby."

And she knows what he means, that all of Arthur is not gone, that she carries his child, the security of the dynasty, the last tangible tidbit of Arthur they have left. But it brings all the loss and grief of Arthur not being here to know he is a father home, and she swallows against the tears in her eyes even as she smiles.

"Yes," she says softly. "I'm carrying Arthur's baby."

It's the first time she's said it out loud, and it is right that she says it to Merlin. He has been there for Arthur, for her, through all the years. He deserves to hear it.

They lean on the battlement together, and both their hearts are a bit lighter than they were before; they are both half-smiling.

"You know," Merlin says suddenly, "Arthur and I once stood here and watched Gwaine leave when Uther banished him. He was talking to you in the street, and Arthur was decidedly jealous. Not that he would admit it, the prat."

It is the first time Merlin has shared any of the memories he carries of Arthur or of Gwaine, whose death has hit him hard too. Gwen smiles and laughs through the tears that rise.

They are still badly broken, she and Merlin both, but they are beginning to heal just a bit.

"I've thought of naming the baby Arthur, if it's a boy," she comments.

To her surprise, Merlin flinches and shakes his head sharply. "You can't do that," he says firmly. "I'll never be able to call him by his name. Arthur – that name belonged to one man."

Gwen acquiesces to his point. She runs back over a few of the conversations she and Arthur had about names – lighthearted, half-teasing (conversations they will never have again).

"Amhar?" she suggests, because Arthur liked that name, and because it is close enough to his.

"Amhar," Merlin repeats, rolling the name out thoughtfully. "I like that."

He turns to her suddenly and kneels before her, like a knight swearing fealty. "I swear," Merlin says firmly, "I will defend you and your child with my life, with all my strength and all my magic. I will defend you as I defended Arthur."

That is the most sacred vow he can make, and she knows it. For the first time he has the beginning of a new purpose for his magic. For the first time, the despair that has edged his face since he came home is fading a bit. For the first time, Gwen believes that maybe she can carry this kingdom on her shoulders with Merlin there by her side.

She takes her best friend's hands and lifts him to his feet. "I am honored by your vow," she says softly.

Camelot is still not home and will never be home without Arthur in it. But perhaps, just perhaps, she and Merlin can go on living if they do it together.

Together, pregnant queen and sorcerer turn and watch the last of the light slip from the land.

Now we say goodbye . . .

You are lost, you can never go home

A/N: This is probably the saddest thing I will ever post here, because I definitely believe in happy endings. But this is really a prologue to my story "The Future of a King," which I'll start posting here shortly. As that story is from Amhar's perspective, this didn't really fit in it, but that story is my happy ending to Merlin.

The lyrics are adapted and paraphrased from "Gollum's Song," sung by Emiliana Torrini at the end of "The Two Towers" movie. I was not originally intending this to be a song fic, but as I was writing these lyrics kept running through my head, and they fit so perfectly I had to use them. Obviously I don't own either the song or the show "Merlin."

I'll close off this long note by saying that any reviews will be read, reread, loved and appreciated! And if you want to see a happier conclusion to this arc, stay tuned for "The Future of a King"!