A/N: This fic is my take on Arthur's death and his transition to Avalon. I adore the Merlin/Arthur pairing but I'm not sure if I meant this as slash or merely a deep friendship. Read it as you will.

Thank you to my amazing beta WinterBaby19 for fixing this story up. I'm still not completely satisfied with the ending, but what can you do?

Disclaimer: I do not own Merlin. That is quite unfortunate because I would love to own Colin Morgan.

Tears in Avalon

Pools of bright red smeared the otherwise pristine green landscape. Soldiers lay in grotesque positions – like rag dolls thrown to the ground by a petulant child. No one stood around these soldiers and prayed for recovery as they coughed their last moments of life away. There was only one body that was surrounded by men – men who uttered words of both comfort and prayer.

"My lord…" a knight whispered softly, reaching for the dagger embedded in the man's ribcage.

"Leave it," the man breathed slowly.

"But my lord – "

"Leave it."

"Sire, let us take you to a physician."

"No."

"But Your Majesty – "

"I have lived through many injuries before. But this is it. I will not live through this. I know that."

The man breathed heavily. Breathing hurt. Everything hurt. The pain overtook every sense. King Arthur of Albion took a rasping breath and knew that this was his deathbed. He would not walk in world of the living again.

Some knights huddled around him, their heads bowed while other turned away to hide the tears trailing down their faces.

"Home," Arthur whispered, "Take me home…"

The king's whisper hung in the air for moment and then it was gone with a gust of wind. An unearthly airstream struck up in the field. He would have screamed in pain as the wind buffeted his old, dying body but he did not have the strength. He closed his eyes. Surely this was death coming to take him at last.

But then he felt the winds cease as quickly as they had started. Arthur dared not open his eyes lest they betray his fear. The valiant King Arthur was human after all and death scared him.

"My lord..." the closest knight, Galahad, whispered softly and Arthur thought he heard something like wonder in his youthful voice.

Arthur opened his eyes and saw to his astonishment trees above him rather than the dimming blue heavens that had sheltered him before. But maybe these were the tricks of eyes that were slowly losing their life.

His eyes searched his knights for some affirmation that this was indeed a trick of the eyes, but his beloved friends also surveyed the land with surprise in their expressions.

With a gentle crunch of a twig being trodden upon, all of his knights turned their heads towards the lake that lay at their lord's feet.

Approaching from the water's edge were three hooded women who looked like they were borne of the gentle waves that beat against the shore. The unearthly women stopped at Arthur's feet.

Shakily, Galahad stood and held his sword aloft, "Who are you? Why have you brought His Majesty here?"

"Put down your weapon child," one of the women said in a kind but firm voice.

"We come not to harm your king. We come to honor him," another woman said.

"Help him into the vessel," the last woman commanded while gesturing to a small boat that stood in the still water behind her.

"How can we give our king to women we do not know?" Galahad asked.

Arthur spoke up finally, "It is all right. Let me go. That is an order."

Two of his knights including Galahad helped him to his feet. He couldn't stand; the two knights were holding his dead weight up.

"Lay him down in the boat," the first woman said.

The knights followed the orders and settled him in the boat after a few moments of struggling with his dead weight. As soon as his knights bowed away the boat began to move slowly. There was not even a moment for a final farewell. The vessel moved without assistance as though some power was drawing it onward and across the still water.

Arthur's breaths came in shallow gasps that pained his every nerve. He felt warm blood gushing forth from the wound in his side. The feeling of blood rushing out of his body was not alien to him, but this level of pain certainly was. Old age had finally caught up to him and his ability to tolerate pain had lessened over the years. Not that it mattered anymore; these were his last breaths.

And yet his curiosity was not satiated. Why were three hooded women taking him across a lake?

When he voiced this thought the woman sitting to his right reached down and put a hand on his shoulder. Instantly he felt the pain coursing through his body disappear. Or maybe his old body had simply gone numb from the intensity of such anguish.

"You are returning to the place of your beginning," the woman sitting to his left told him.

He tried to speak but found that he could not.

"Yes, you were born in Camelot, but you were conceived by magic."

Again, Arthur tried to speak but could not. His confusion and anger showed brightly in his eyes.

The first woman, to his right took off her hood. Arthur did not recognize her even though she seemed vaguely familiar.

"Ygraine. I am Ygraine."

Mother.

She stroked his brow and he realized that all feeling to his body had returned. Nothing pained him however. He felt as young and agile as ever.

His mother, Ygraine was here. The woman he had never seen. The woman whose life he had taken in his most innocent moments. The woman whose warmth he had never felt.

Arthur was almost glad he could not speak. What could he say to the mother he had never known?

Next the woman to his left took off her hood.

Morgana.

She looked as he remembered her from their youth, not of the time when her madness had driven him to kill her. Her hair was long and thick. Her skin was not sallow and waxy but the purest of white. Her eyes held the kindness of days he had almost forgotten. Of the days when she risked her life to help servants and days when she had defied the king for good deeds.

"I'm sorry," Arthur thought.

Morgana smiled softly, "I know."

The third woman still sat quietly at his feet.

Morgana, the woman he had loved as a sister, spoke to the still hooded woman, "He has a right to know."

Know what?

Slowly the third woman lifted her hands to her hood and threw it back.

"I am Nimue," she spoke boldly.

A fire burned in Arthur upon hearing her name. He needed his voice back. This was the reason he spent the last twenty years of his life in misery and anger.

"You! You took him. You took Merlin – !" he suddenly shouted, surprising both himself and the women around him.

"It was your obstinacy that drove him to me. I only took what he was willing to give," she responded calmly.

Arthur tried to get up. He needed to hurt this woman. She was the reason he spent so much of his life without Merlin. Merlin, who had been his confidante, his advisor, his best friend.

"I am not the reason Merlin left. You are, King Arthur of Camelot. Your hatred for magic drove him away. You could not accept the essence of his very being. How could he stay with you? The irony remains that you yourself are a being borne of magic."

He struggled to understand the weight of her words. He did not make Merlin leave. He would never. Arthur refused to believe it. Instead of responding to the words that filled his veins with poison, he turned to his mother.

"What is the meaning of this? I am borne of your flesh and blood."

A single pearlescent tear rolled down Ygaine's pale cheek.

"Alas my son, I cannot deny what she says. I could not bless Uther with a child. We asked Nimue for her aid. She put your life within me."

Arthur sat, speechless for the second time in the boat, but this time for a completely different reason.

Since his birth, Arthur had been told that magic was an evil that only engendered more evil in its stead. Uther hated magic more that he loved his own son. That hatred had been given to Arthur. It was that hatred that had driven Morgana mad. That hatred that had caused the inevitable decision to kill Morgana. It was that hatred that had driven Merlin away. He, himself, had driven Merlin away. He had only himself to blame.

The same tears that stained Ygraine's face now stained Arthur's. Tears that asked for forgiveness from the people his hatred had hurt. Tears that washed away anger. Tears that searched for the one person he truly needed. Tears that were overjoyed for this final resting place.

"We are here."

"Where is here?" Arthur asked finally while slowly sitting up. "What is this place of magic?"

"Avalon."

The three women spoke in unison of the country in which they had just arrived. Arthur felt a strange warmth spread through his entire body, from his head to his toes. He looked up and saw a thick forest at the edge of the water. Eagerness filled him. Whatever this place was, he longed to be there.

He stepped out of the boat and realized that his body no longer felt weary with old age. He looked into the clear still water of the lake and saw that his hair was no longer streaked with gray but the golden color of his youth. He took a step on the sturdy legs of a young man and smiled for the first time in many years.

The three women with whom he had traveled stood next to him.

"Come Arthur. This is to be your home. Until Albion is again in need of your wisdom."

"Until – "

"Do no bother yourself with that my love," Ygraine said, "That will not come to pass for many eons."

Arthur nodded slowly and walked onwards into the dense trees. The land was quiet and still, but the air was pleasant and comforting.

"I am here because I was borne of magic?" Arthur intoned to his mother.

"No, love, you are here because it is a place of rest. And forgiveness," she replied with a sad smile, "You have earned some rest after the life you lived."

Forgiveness.

There was so much Arthur needed to ask forgiveness for. During his life he had always pushed that guilt – that pain – away. His subjects needed a king devoid of emotional issues, and so anything that might have eaten at his soul was ignored. Now, in this strange new land that had given him a brand new life, he could seek the peace that his soul so wholly desired.

He needed to ask for forgiveness from his wife, Guinevere, the woman who he had loved deeply but only as a best friend. The woman for whom he was never able to be the husband he had hoped. Guinevere, the woman who tried to remain loyal to a husband who did not even share a bed with her. All these years, hoping for some love from a husband still torn asunder by emotions felt years and year ago.

He needed to ask forgiveness of Lancelot, his most trusted knight. Lancelot had given his life in service to his king. And what had the king done in response? Taken his friend's one true love and married her. Even then, Lancelot, being the man that he was had forgiven the king. Such guilt now poured into Arthur he could not bear it.

It was this place. This wretched place of rest. Arthur would receive no gift of respite here. Here there was only his mind and the horrors of his past. This was not a place of forgiveness but rather of punishment. It was no wonder Morgana had come to escort him here. She was bringing him to the place where he would be punished for killing her maddened soul.

The three women had left Arthur and he was alone amongst the trees – alone with his thoughts of failing to be the man he had hoped to be. Failing himself.

Merlin was the one he needed to ask forgiveness of the most. His closest friend. There was no way to describe their relationship. Merlin had been as close as a lover, and yet as chaste as a brother. Merlin helped him back onto the path of righteousness whenever he had strayed. How had Arthur thanked him? He pushed him away. Pushed Merlin away for being himself – for being a warlock. How could Arthur ever tell him that his anger had been not because of the magic, but because Merlin had not trusted Arthur enough to tell him the secret? Or maybe it was Arthur's secret jealously? Who knew which follies of his weak mortal body had caused the rift? All he knew was that it was his faults that had pushed away the one person he truly and completely cared about.

Arthur's greatest companion had been Merlin and now Arthur had not the faintest idea where he was. With a shout of frustration, Arthur grasped at his hands and fell to his knees. Tears stung at his eyes for the second time that day.

Avalon… place of punishment.

"Arthur?" a familiar voice whispered.

Arthur stood up. In front of him was the face he had missed these past twenty years, the eyes that had held both mischief and wisdom and the mouth that had both beckoned and warned. He was the same age as when Arthur had first met him. The first time Arthur had seen how brave the seeming idiot could be.

Without even thinking, Arthur ran straight to him and pulled him into a warm embrace. Merlin put a hand on Arthur's back as Arthur whispered, "I'm sorry," over and over again.

"I know," Merlin said pulling away and looking straight into Arthur's eyes.

Arthur sunk to the ground as Merlin sat down next to him. Neither spoke for a while, just enjoyed the company that they had so longed for in these past years.

"We are old men," Merlin said finally with mirth dancing in his eyes.

"Still making idiotic jokes?" Arthur said, though he smiled warmly.

"You know me," Merlin replied. Arthur thought he heard something like regret.

"No," Arthur said heavily, "I do not. I have not for many years now."

"Arthur –"

"But I want to know what happened all those years – "

This time it was Merlin's turn to say no. He gently put his hand on Arthur's and said, "No. Those years do not matter anymore. Those years are lost."

Arthur looked at Merlin and started to apologize again but Merlin put a stop to it at once.

"I have already forgiven you. And anyways, it was half my fault was it not? We are both so stubborn. Guinevere always said so. But now we are both here. And it is over."

Arthur put his arm around Merlin, pulling him close, and looked into Merlin's bright blue eyes. Avalon was a place of forgiveness. It was a place where men could start anew. Indeed Arthur felt, with Merlin near him, that this would be a long and peaceful afterlife.