PART SEVEN - OUR HEART SURMOUNTS US

our heart

surmounts us always

Arthur is never called before the medical board, because the war does come to an end at last. In November there's a ceasefire, and then it's Christmas in this year of grace 1918.

The Pendragon estate is decorated for the holidays and everything feels unreal, a pretend world. There's an enormous Christmas tree in the drawing-room, its glass baubles bright and glittering for no one. Fires burn in the grates, candles are lit and the stars are cold in the sky.

Uther is held up at Whitehall but Morgana returns from France, and Arthur wanders with her across black and white marble through echoing halls, not knowing what to do, what to say. Her beauty has deepened and matured; there's a sadness in her eyes that will never go away, the same one they both carry. Death is lodged inside them. Morgana is only twenty-four but at her left temple there's a thin strand of white in the black masses of her hair. The sight of it makes Arthur ache. He wants to pull her close and whisper it all better, as though it were possible, as though anyone could. They look bleakly at each other and try to smile.

Morgana assesses the scarring of Arthur's burns with professional coolness. The touch of her fingers makes him shiver and the physical memory of Merlin strikes like a flash of lightning: long slender hands on his body, fingertips playing over his ribs. He turns away from Morgana before his eyes betray him.

On Boxing Day Arthur sits at the desk in the library, slowly leafing through a book on Botticelli. When the angels look up at him from the glossy pages with Merlin's eyes he gives up and puts his head on his arms, feeling the book under his palms, his eyes stinging with loss.

When Morgana enters, he is frozen into position. He can't even lift his head when her hand squeezes his shoulder.

"Come on, Arthur," she says gently. "Let's go for a walk."

The world is pale and brittle with frost, quiet and empty without fighter planes in the sky. Arthur pushes his gloved hands into his coat pockets, hunches his shoulders and tries not to think, tries not to acknowledge the fact that Mrs Emrys has not replied to his letter asking if she's heard from Merlin.

It doesn't mean anything, he thinks.

The truth is that nothing means anything any more.

xxx

When Arthur wakes up screaming, it takes mere seconds for Morgana to come running to sit on the edge of his bed. She is still on full alert for emergencies, waking up at the smallest noise. She strokes his sweaty hair and holds him while he gasps and sobs out incoherent phrases, giving her torn images from his dreams, spitting them out like they've been chewed.

"It's all right," she whispers, "it's all right," as if those words could make it so.

Arthur is always pale in the morning after a nightmare, his face drawn and tense. He rolls his shoulder and grimaces like the burn is troubling him, but there's no fooling Morgana. She knows his pain is all in his mind, knows it well because it's hers, too.

Now and again he thinks she's the only thing that keeps him going.

xxx

The new year breaks.

Late in the morning of its third day, Arthur is reading the paper in the breakfast room over a lazy cup of coffee when the maid opens the door with a curtsy.

"Mr Emrys, sir."

At first Arthur doesn't take in the meaning, and when he does he blanks out. The room fades around him and the entire world is incomprehensible. He stares at the floor while some distant part of his brain registers the light falling across the wood, deepening the honey-colour. Then he must have sprung up, for he is suddenly on his feet; his chair is turned over and his coffee cup is pushed off the table, the remaining liquid spreading like a brown rose on the Oriental rug. The room swims.

Merlin is so very thin and pale as he stands in the doorway. His dark hair is growing back from the brutal army cut and he is all cheekbones and eyes. Is he even real? He seems to shimmer in the morning light, to float against the dark hallway behind him, but perhaps it's only in Arthur's blurred vision. Nothing makes sense and yet everything does, the way it always has with Merlin.

"Arthur," Merlin says. His voice, his voice, it shakes Arthur to pieces. "I know I shouldn't have turned up like this, so unexpectedly. I should have telegraphed first, but..." Like he is unsure of his welcome.

Dear God, Arthur thinks, wondering if he is going to pass out.

"Merlin," he manages. His throat aches with tears and the name is barely audible through the noise in his head.

Before Merlin can speak again, hurried footsteps come echoing through the hall behind him.

"Merlin? Merlin!"

Morgana rushes in, her hair wild, and Merlin catches her to stop them both falling. She throws her arms around his neck and kisses his cheek, they're both laughing and Morgana is crying, and Arthur blesses her presence that gives him time to collect himself.

"You survived," she says inanely, smiling up into Merlin's eyes.

His face is unreadable as he kisses her forehead and then the strand of white in her hair. "You asked me to," he says, "so I did. For you."

"Oh, Merlin," Morgana says, still laughing, "you're such a liar, and such an atrociously bad one."

When she glances at Arthur, Merlin turns to look at Arthur, too; continues to look at Arthur like he can't help it, like he can't stop.

Morgana slips out of his arms and backs away, making a more discreet and tactful exit than Arthur would ever have thought her capable of, and then Arthur and Merlin are alone.

xxx

Arthur is surrounded by light, a still, white light that bears no resemblance to flames. He is older, his face is sculpted and polished, more taut and inscrutable than Merlin remembers it. His eyes hold a lifetime and his mere presence in the room shakes Merlin to the core.

Morgana is energy and a fire all her own, love and fierceness and a deep understanding that Arthur has always underestimated. Magic prickles and crackles along Merlin's veins, raising the hairs on his arms and at the back of his neck. He was nervous to come here, afraid that Arthur would be changed, would not want him despite the letter to Hunith, but Arthur's eyes tell him differently.

When Merlin takes a step forward, Arthur makes a strangled noise and grips Merlin's arm, hard.

"Come," he says, pulling Merlin away, down through the hall, up the curved staircase and along a panelled corridor to what must be his bedroom.

One wall is covered with books, there's a desk by the window and an enormous four-poster with heavy curtains. Merlin notes all these things at the back of his mind, through the whirls and surges of time where Arthur is the only fixed point, the rock that he seizes and holds on to.

Arthur looks at him.

xxx

Arthur looks at Merlin and doesn't know what to do, what to say; there are too many things jumbled in his head. After all of Arthur's dreams and fantasies, memories and fears, the real Merlin looks so small and frail, so utterly human with the too short hair and those bones protruding at his wrists; the undergrad of Cambridge stepping out of the shimmer of nostalgia to stand here in the winter light with tired eyes. There's a small, white scar on his right cheekbone, sickle-shaped and rough-edged. Arthur touches it with a fingertip.

"What is this?"

"Tiny shell splinter."

The image of Merlin with blood on his face makes anger well up in Arthur. Merlin could have died a thousand times and Arthur would never have known; he could have been left in a mass grave at the front or in that sad, ghostly cemetery at Etaples. Arthur's fingers curl into his palms, nails biting into the skin, and he wants to shout at Merlin for being alive and beautiful. He wants to kiss Merlin for the same reason.

"How long have you been home?" he asks. "A month? Six weeks?"

"Three weeks."

The reply is accompanied by a one-shouldered shrug that incenses Arthur.

"Three weeks." His voice is low and ominous. "Three weeks. And you didn't find it in you to send me a telegram, or write a letter? You didn't have a minute to spare to tell me you were alive and well? You must have known I'd written to your mother to find out, and you didn't have the grace to let me know."

It's the tension and sorrow and fear of months that is transforming itself into anger. He has been so scared for so long; it needs to go somewhere. And he is still afraid, afraid that Merlin has stopped feeling the way they did at Cambridge, afraid that Arthur wants Merlin more than anything in this world while Merlin needs to move on.

His thoughts stop abruptly when Merlin takes Arthur's face in his hands.

"Don't think so much, Arthur," he says softly. "I'm here. I came as soon as I could because I wanted to see you, not send you a letter that couldn't say what I wanted to say anyway, or do what I - what I want to - Arthur, I - "

It becomes clear to Arthur in that moment that he is not alone in what he feels, and Merlin is silenced by Arthur's mouth. His hands slide up the back of Arthur's neck and into his hair to hold him there; Arthur grips Merlin's hips so hard it has to hurt.

"God," Merlin breathes, "Arthur", and his voice is like heat down Arthur's body.

His skin is so pale against the sheets on Arthur's bed, and Arthur can't have enough. He wants his mouth everywhere on Merlin and grazes his teeth over a nipple, nuzzles into an armpit, his hands roaming all over. He remembers their first time, in Merlin's rooms at Cambridge, with them so fumbly and incredulous and so turned on, and the last time, rough and desperate in the conviction that it really was the last.

But they're here now, and it's real, and Merlin's tongue is as greedy as it has always been.

At the sight of Arthur's scars Merlin lets out a startled breath, kissing them with a tenderness that almost brings tears to Arthur's eyes. Arthur runs his mouth along Merlin's ribs, so terribly, heartbreakingly visible.

Merlin's skin is salty and sweet and the tip of his cock slick against Arthur's cheek, the back of his knee heavy in Arthur's hand. Arthur presses his nose into the crease of Merlin's thigh and inhales the scent of him, still not quite believing that this is not a dream and he will not wake up to the cracked ceiling of the barracks. Merlin's fingers knot in his hair, impatient, his hips arching up.

"Come," Merlin pants, "I want you in me."

His back pushes into the curve of Arthur's body as Arthur moves in him, desperately, with his face against Merlin's sweat-damp neck. Merlin is clutching at the bedclothes, incoherent words spilling out of his mouth. When Arthur reaches around and touches his cock he doesn't even try to muffle his shout as he comes. Arthur pushes inside him hard, bites his shoulder and follows.

xxx

Merlin's body is heavy and sated and he can feel the small, content smile on his lips. Arthur's arm is warm and hard around him, breath damp against the back of his neck, and as long as they can lie like this, listening to their blood sing, Merlin will be happy.

It's not until then that he notices the state of the room. Things are floating around in the air - furniture, books, a vase; the drapes and curtains are billowing softly as if gravity has lost its grip. The tired plant on the side table has burst into a riot of red flowers. Oh god. Behind him, Arthur has noticed too, sitting upright.

Merlin makes a noise like a whimper; the desk and chairs thud to the floor, the books slot into place in the bookcase and the curtains sink back into position.

Silence fills the room and Merlin waits. Grey light seeps in from the window and plays over Arthur's hair. It took an hour, Merlin thinks, to spoil everything. We found our way back and it took me an hour.

Arthur has known about Merlin's magic before, in another life, and he accepted it then because it was of use to him. There is no knowing how he will react to it now.

"Merlin, did you..." Arthur grapples with words and starts again. "Was that you?"

Merlin nods, swallows, preparing himself for questions and accusations, rage perhaps, but it doesn't come.

After a long silence, Arthur asks quietly: "What else can you do?"

Small things, Merlin thinks, I must keep to small things. He takes a breath and blinks. With a soft rush the dying fire flares up in the grate, the window is flung open, the lamps are lit. The desk lifts again to float a few inches above the floor.

The air tastes of winter and burning wood and Arthur's throat works like he is drinking it, swallowing this new reality. He will have to accept it, Merlin thinks half in panic, he must accept it. They've been through a war; they've learnt to adjust to all kinds of horror. Surely Arthur will not, cannot regard something as strong and beautiful as magic as an evil thing. After all, it was magic that saved his life, both their lives – if Merlin hadn't had magic, neither of them would be here. Oh, the cruel irony of it; the hopelessness of surviving a war only to face imprisonment.

There's another silence. Then Arthur says: "I see."

Merlin looks away as he lowers the desk to the floor and shuts the window. He leaves the fire burning; they need the heat.

Now Arthur knows. Now he can kick Merlin out of his bed, out of sight, out of his life, and everything will be empty and meaningless.

The silence stretches on and on while Merlin pictures his life without Arthur. He doesn't realise there are tears on his face until he feels Arthur's thumb smooth something away from his cheek.

"Are you scared, Merlin," Arthur says, and his voice is warm.

It's ridiculous that Merlin is scared now when he never was in the trenches – except for the time when that image came to him, the image of Arthur in the burning plane. But in the trenches he could protect himself. Now Arthur has all the power, and if he doesn't want Merlin, there is nothing Merlin can do. Then he could just as well have left himself open to the shells and the gas and died there in the mud with the thousands and thousands of others.

"Yes," he whispers. "Yes, I am."

Arthur's hand touches his face with great gentleness. "Can I ask you something? Or tell you, I'm not sure which."

Merlin gulps, swallowing tears and anxiety. "Of course."

"When my plane was hit," Arthur says slowly, tracing a finger down Merlin's cheek, "when it caught fire and I thought I'd crash, when I thought it was the end for me… then it felt like... I felt... like you were there. I can't explain it. I must have been hallucinating – there was something about a creature of fire, a dragon perhaps, and I thought I heard your voice. I thought I could feel you, your presence. Like you were the one taking me back behind the lines. You and that fire creature."

It comes out like a tentative question, and Merlin takes a deep breath. "That's because I was."

Arthur is looking intently at Merlin. "You... were? Merlin, I don't understand this yet. You'll have to tell me, explain to me. What does that mean, that you were there? How could you know…"

"Because I felt you," says Merlin quietly. "I knew you were in danger; I felt your panic. I could always see you, from the moment we met at Cambridge, I could see you like a… a light, a kind of luminous haze, in my mind. If I close my eyes now, I'll still see you, see that glow. And then, back in the trenches, I saw you as clearly as if it was all happening right in front of me – that you were hit, that your plane caught fire, that your gunner was dead, and I knew you'd either burn or crash, or both. I had to do something. But even if I put out the fire you'd still have to land, and I knew you wouldn't make it back behind the lines with the plane as it was. So... I had to help you."

"How?" Arthur looks at him, just looks. "What did you do?"

Merlin swallows hard. "There wasn't much I could do with the fire," he says, "except extinguish it. But something... Arthur, this is going to sound insane, but I'll try to explain later. I'm not sure I understand it all myself at this point, but... my father was a dragonlord, and I knew that I could... I transformed the fire into a dragon, because dragons will heed my command. You weren't delusional. There was a dragon. I commanded it to protect you and take you back behind the lines, back near the airstrip where I knew you'd get help. When I knew you were safe I handed you over. And don't worry, no one else would have seen the dragon; it would only have looked like flames to them."

Arthur opens his mouth to speak but the words don't come, and he lies back against the pillows in silence, looking up at the ceiling as if he'll be able to see an explanation written there. Merlin watches him anxiously, watches as Arthur reaches for his cigarettes, offers Merlin one and lights them both, watches the smoke rise towards the ceiling and disperse.

"How powerful is your magic?" Arthur asks at last. He is still not looking at Merlin.

Merlin shakes his head. "I don't know." He takes a deep breath. "I never thought it amounted to much. I only did small things as a child – lit fires in the grate, moved small objects, summoned things I couldn't find. I stopped the rain once or twice, and Ga- er, someone told me later that it takes quite powerful magic to change the weather. I had some coaching at – well, when I got older, and I began to realise that perhaps my magic does have power. I couldn't do much about the war – it was too huge. But I've never felt my magic as strong as when I saw your plane get hit. Perhaps it's linked to emotion. I think it may be." And if it is, Merlin doesn't say, then it's not surprising that my magic is at its most powerful when I'm with you, or when you need me.

There is so much that needs explaining, how they have known each other before, how Merlin's magic held so much more power when he was Arthur's court sorcerer, how perhaps it was diminished in this life because Merlin had failed to save his king's life, how it may have changed again now that the balance has been restored... but it will have to wait. One step at a time.

They smoke in silence and Merlin is still waiting for the storm, for Arthur's reaction. He has been lied to; Merlin has deceived him ever since they met and there must be a price to pay for that.

Arthur gets out of bed and pulls on a robe. Merlin watches him as he paces the room, pausing by the window where he touches the frame, the ledge, the pane as if examining them for traces of magic. Merlin lies very still, waiting for the verdict.

"God, Merlin," Arthur says at last. His voice is low and sends a renewed shiver down Merlin's spine. He comes back to bed and lies down close, leaning on an elbow, looking down at Merlin's face as Merlin nervously bites his lip.

"This will take some getting used to," Arthur murmurs. He traces a fingertip over Merlin's shoulder and down his arm, making Merlin draw in a ragged breath like it's the first time he's been touched.

"I know I've said this before," Arthur continues softly, his eyes returning to Merlin's, "but it bears repeating: I'm not my father." His hair is gold in the soft light. "I hate it that you've hidden this from me. I hate it that you had to." He takes a breath. "I'd lie if I said I wasn't hurt, but I do understand. I don't hate magic, Merlin; I don't hate you. You must never think that I would."

When he reaches out to touch Merlin's face Merlin closes his eyes, his entire world focused for a moment on Arthur's fingertips on his skin. When he opens them again, what he sees makes him gasp.

The flames have returned.

Arthur is surrounded by fire, like he was when Merlin first saw him at university. Back then the fire was hazy and Arthur a shadowed figure, but now Arthur stands out clearly in its midst and there is nothing hazy about the flames – only the tears rising in Merlin's eyes are making them so. He blinks them away impatiently and Arthur is burning, burning clean.

The power of it takes Merlin's breath away. The strong lines of Arthur's face, the curve of his mouth, the blue of his eyes. Merlin remembers thinking that he wanted to be there when the fire burnt clear and clean, and that day has come. Arthur is emerging.

It means something; something to do with the images in the ice sculpture in the woods, with the way Merlin's magic comes alive in Arthur's presence and how the fire around Arthur changes with time and with Merlin's presence. This is meant to be. They are. Over and over, they are meant to meet and change the world – in small things or on a larger scale; perhaps it does not matter.

He reaches up and pulls Arthur down to him, aware of the significance of this moment, their first kiss when nothing needs to be hidden.

xxx

"You're aware that some people try to blame the war on the magical community," Arthur says much later, looking at Merlin's sated face.

Merlin snorts. "If magic had been involved," he says, "do they really think we'd have been stuck in the trenches for years?"

Arthur begins to laugh, and they both laugh until they have tears in their eyes at something so profoundly unfunny. Merlin goes quiet and looks at Arthur, reaches up to remove the wetness from the corner of his eye.

"I love you," he says, quietly and earnestly, and Arthur stills, stunned by hearing the words spoken. "I know I never said it before, but god, Arthur, I do. I love you."

And while Arthur's throat works to produce sound, Merlin adds: "Please don't say it back."

Arthur understands, he does - because didn't he think the same thing once?

"I won't," he promises, catching Merlin's hand and kissing it, kissing the base of the thumb and then the palm. "I'll save it and ambush you with it when you least expect it."

Merlin slides down Arthur's body to lick at his hipbone, making a soft, appreciative noise when Arthur's cock shows interest.

"I didn't think it was possible," Merlin murmurs as his mouth moves to the inside of Arthur's thigh, "but you just made me love you more."

And then they lose their ability to speak at all for quite some time.

xxx

"I've been thinking," Merlin says when it's already dark and they still haven't left Arthur's bed, "that perhaps your father isn't wrong about you going into politics."

Arthur turns to look at him, frowning. He hasn't thought much of what he will do; all his energy has been consumed by getting well and pushing away the thought that Merlin might be dead. Now that Merlin has miraculously returned to life, to Arthur's bed and to his arms, he will have to consider what to do next.

"Things will have to change," Merlin says, low and urgent, "the world will have to change, and I'm beginning to think that we can change it. Together. For one thing, the ban on magic must be lifted. There ought to be schools for the magically gifted, where they can learn about their magic, learn to use it, control it, direct it, like I did at..." He stops himself.

"At Cambridge," Arthur finishes slowly.

"Yes," Merlin concedes. "At Cambridge."

Arthur closes his eyes, recalling Merlin's reply from many years ago, when Arthur asked him if he had secrets. You're Arthur Pendragon, he had said, simply.

Remembering it now, Arthur stumbles through a chain of thoughts. He is Uther Pendragon's son, and Uther Pendragon is an influential politician with a well-known agenda, known for wanting to punish deviation from what he perceives as the norm. There are two deviations in particular for which he insists on hard labour, where he wants people to be punished for what they are rather than for their actions and choices: homosexuality and magic. The homosexuality had already been kind of a moot point at that stage, when Merlin gave him that reply, which left – magic.

Arthur groans and rubs his eyes. If he had only been a little quicker back then, if his thick head had been a little clearer, he would have realised there and then what Merlin was trying to tell him, had in all effect told him. If he hadn't been so set on having everything spelled out to him in capital letters, he'd have been able to read between the lines and hear what Merlin wasn't saying.

"Perhaps you're right, Merlin," he says. "We should go up to Cambridge and finish our degrees. I want to do something that matters, and I could use your help."

The smile on Merlin's face says yes, this, this is what I want for us.

xxx

Things are coming together, Merlin thinks. Arthur will find his place in the world, which means that Merlin will, too.

He kisses the shiny, puckered skin on Arthur's shoulder gratefully, strokes his fingertips lightly over it, down Arthur's arm, up the side of his neck to the ear. "I could heal these for you," he says. "I could remove your scars."

Arthur is silent for a moment, watching Merlin thoughtfully. "No," he says at last, "no, I don't think I'd want that." A pause. "I think I'd like to keep them... as a reminder. Not of horror and death, but of... of gratitude, Merlin. A reminder not to take things for granted."

And Merlin can only look at him. Right this minute he loves Arthur so much he doesn't trust himself to speak.

Instead he leans over and kisses Arthur's mouth, feels it yield and open for his tongue, and in his mind his action is parallelled by red wax dripped on a roll of parchment and stamped with the royal signet, the Pendragon crest.

Arthur's pulse is strong and steady under Merlin's fingertips, his hand warm and gentle at the back of Merlin's neck. Merlin closes his eyes and exists only in the moment, in the love and closeness and this kiss that seals the future.

When he pulls back at last, the smile on Arthur's face is radiant like the sun when the year has passed the cusp of midwinter and turned towards spring.

THE END

End Notes: Books that were important for this story, and from which I have borrowed and drawn inspiration:

E.M. Forster - Maurice
K.M. Peyton - The Edge of the Cloud
Erich Maria Remarque - All Quiet on the Western Front
Ian McEwan - Atonement
Evelyn Waugh - Brideshead Revisited

and last but not least,

Rainer Maria Rilke - Duino Elegies, from which the story quote, the chapter quotes and the title of this story were taken.