Title: when all these futile dreams fall away, only you and i remain
Author: brickroad16/inafadinglight
Rating: K+/PG
Pairing: Merlin/Morgana
Spoilers: For S4, especially 4.11
Summary: After Arthur refuses to confide in or trust him, Merlin finds himself in the most unexpected of places.
Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin. If I did, I'd, you know, know what I was doing with my life. And one of the lines in here is actually from a book called The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner (which is amazing and has inspired me before).
A/N: I don't know where this came from. I watched 4.11 and I was like, "Man, poor Merlin gets the brunt end of the stick a lot. Wouldn't it be crazy if his enemy, the most unlikely person in the world, were the only person who could comfort him?" So yeah . . . this is that. Takes place after Arthur threatens to exile Merlin, but before Mithian's departure. Imagine if Merlin went to Arthur's chambers, but Arthur didn't open up about Gwen. What would have happened?
This recent spate of fics is because I'm catching up on TV and have a lot of free time. No idea how many more I'll get out. As always, please don't favorite without leaving a review. :) Merry Christmas!

His head snaps up at the sound of twigs breaking, and he looks straight into her eyes, so full of distrust and suspicion. He looks around quickly, opening his eyes for the first time to realize he's in the depths of the forest, standing not fifty meters from the hovel she calls a home. The gloom of twilight is deepening, throwing shadows across her face, a face he knows so well, a face that haunts his dreams until he wakes up shivering.

She clutches a knife in her hand, its blade catching dancing slivers of moonlight.

"What are you doing here?" she queries, her voice cold as she circles him slowly.

"Uh . . ." he mutters with a slight shake of his head, because even he's not sure of the answer to that.

Morgana, though, has never been one to need explanations. She prefers to conjure her own from the evening fog surrounding them. A sneer jumps to her lips, once so beautiful, now twisted by fear. "Here to gloat about defeating my plans yet again? I don't know how you did it, but I'm sure you had something to do with it."

His befuddled mind reaches back to the day before, Gwen's pain reflected in the startled eyes of a hunted doe, Mithian's shot, the revelation that the woman standing before him was behind it all.

"N-n-no," he stammers, hands hanging helplessly in front of him. "I just . . ."

Brow furrowed, she approaches him cautiously. "Just what? Spit it out, fool."

"I didn't mean to come. I only . . . went walking."

Her expression softens, almost imperceptibly, but enough for him to notice, enough for his heart to spasm with something dangerously close to hope. He licks his lips, swallows through a throat arid from walking all this way without a single drop of water. As he stares into her eyes, a darker shade of green than he remembers, closer to jade than peridot now, a rush of loneliness strikes him hard in the chest. He's spent so long running from it, so long ignoring the growing ache inside and lying to himself, telling himself there's nothing missing, that he's still whole.

But there's no truth without her.

She has a strange, wordless way of forcing him to confront what he fears, even if he will always keep his most haunting terror locked up inside.

He's lost, utterly so, and the realization knocks him to his knees.

Her arms are around him, her hand sliding over his shoulder like the touch of an old lover who lingers in the recesses of the mind until every other thought is banished, and the next thing he knows, he's sitting in a wooden armchair at a small wooden table, across from a funny-looking fire pit over which hangs a pot of delicious-smelling stew. He lets himself relax in the chair, feels his muscles slacken. Exhausted and despondent, there'd be no defending himself if she were to attack. At this point, though, he's not sure he cares.

She hasn't dropped the dagger, instead drags the blade along the curve of his cheek.

"How gaunt you are, my prince. You look as if you haven't eaten in days."

He almost thinks she's teasing him, but then she spoons some stew into a bowl, sets the bowl on the table, and slides it toward him. She sits down across from him, the firelight creating an ethereal glow behind her, and watches him curiously.

"It's not poisoned, I promise you," she tells him, a hint of a smile on her lips. "Poison's your method, not mine."

There's no malice in her tone, only unadorned honesty. He takes a bite of stew, pleasantly surprised at how flavorful it is. A year of surviving on her own in the forest has changed her in many ways, not just physically, in her black and green dress and wild hair. She's always been more than beautiful, but he somehow thinks she's grown into herself here, in this dark, dank, miserable little place. He can't think of her monstrous plots without unbearable pangs of regret, but there's a part of him that's almost . . . proud. Because no magical being should go through life without being allowed to feel the extent of their true power.

"This is good," he grunts. When she smiles, he takes another bite and adds through a mouthful, "I can't believe you actually know how to cook."

"I know a lot of new things nowadays."

He can see it – the warm glow of gold in her eyes when she incants a spell, the forced confidence in her posture, the uncertainty in her path that she endeavors to hide. She's grown so much in the year after she's run away. As always when he looks at her, he wonders what life would be like, what he would be like, if things were different. It's an intense longing that never quite fades, even though it buries itself when he returns to the castle.

"Give me your hand," she requests.

"What?"

She indicates his hand with a tip of her head, and he notices for the first time a cut across his right palm, thick with congealed blood.

"Oh," he mutters, staring perplexedly at the appendage. He must've fallen sometime during his rambling.

The dagger clatters to the table as she takes his hand between hers, her touch surprisingly gentle. Her eyes light up briefly as she conjures some water into a rough-hewn bowl and begins to wash away the blood. He remembers when her hands were smooth porcelain, not callused from work as they are now. Then he quickly chastises himself. He's not supposed to like it better this way. He's not supposed to think about how the social walls separating them have tumbled down. But he can't stop the way his heart beats faster at her touch.

She presses a rag to his hand to dry it, wraps a bandage around his palm. As she fastens it, she asks, "Then you really don't remember how you got here?"

He shakes his head, then chuckles, "Does that make you more or less inclined to kill me?"

"I don't believe I'd tell you one way or the other," she replies cheekily, and for just a moment there's something resembling friendship, their old rapport, between them. Her hand stays enclosed around his. Then, her voice so much softer than he's heard it in a long, long time, she queries, "Aren't you going to tell me about it?"

"About what?"

"About whatever had you wandering in the forest like a lost, wounded animal."

His jaw tightens. He's not quite sure he can trust her with his destiny, not sure she won't simply laugh at him for believing a man like Arthur could ever believe in him, not after how he's acted lately. He tugs his hand away and picks at his stew forlornly.

"It's nothing. You wouldn't care."

A flash of pain she's not quite quick enough to hide tells him that she would, that she does.

Rising, she stalks around to the fire and stares down into the jumping flames, her eyes like molten pits that he's losing himself in. Silence hovers between them, the only sound the crackling of the burning wood, and lifetimes stretch between them in a matter of moments. Scenes from years past flash before his eyes, rise up in the flames, and he tortures himself wondering where he's gone wrong.

Then, with scorn she attempts to hide for his sake, she asks, "It's Arthur, isn't it?"

She doesn't have to add: What's he done now?

But the thing is, is it Arthur? Or has he finally opened his eyes to how much of the fault lies within himself? After all, a man cannot truly be whole if those around him, if those he cares for, have no knowledge of what he is, of the power that surges through his veins. He'd come to Camelot with such good intentions, and he's seemed to lose them along the way.

She knows all about that.

"No," he breathes. "At least, not just Arthur. It's everything, everyone. I feel . . . I feel as though I've lost myself and don't know what to do."

"You will do as you always do," she tells him smoothly. Off his quirked eyebrow, she adds, "Persevere and save the day, of course."

She's a liar. An exquisite one, to be sure, one who reads exactly what he needs to be told and then says it, one who can turn even the wildest of deceits into truth.

Because he doesn't feel he can save the day this time.

Even so, there's something in her gaze, some secret affection, that makes him want to.

Walking over to him, she takes him arm, pulls him out of the chair, leads him toward the bed, and pushes him down onto the thin, prickly mattress.

"You're exhausted," she says, and he loves the huskiness of her low tones. "You must sleep. We'll get you back to Camelot in the morning."

She turns to saunter away. He lets out a shaky, shuddery breath and reaches out to clasp her hand, hesitantly intertwining their fingers. There's so much to say, so much that's beyond words. He stares at their tangled hands for an eternity.

In the end, all he can choke out is: "Don't go."

And, for the first time, she listens.

He thinks his heart may stop when she unlinks their hands, but then she's on his lap, knees against his hips as she straddles him, her fingers knotting through his hair, her lips smashed against his as she steals his breath.

He adores her lips, the way they melt effortlessly against his, the way they taste of berries and raindrops, the way just a touch can heal him, mend his wounds and erase his scars.

His arms slide readily around her waist, because he needs to pull her closer than close. Even the breath between them is too much space.

"Things could've been different, for us," he murmurs.

"They can be," she exhales, lips against lips, and when she inhales again, he feels as if she's breathing in his very essence. "We will make it different."

Her words tickle the curve of his ear, and he decides he loves every single one of her ridiculous lies.

His hands freeze in the middle of pulling up the coverlet on Arthur's bed. The king himself stands on the other side of the room, his eyes narrowed as he dons a jacket for the day.

"What's wrong with you this morning?"

His king's voice restarts him, jerks him from his memories.

But his hands shake as he finishes making the bed. Plumping the pillows, he lets out a long, slow sigh. He can't admit how he's haunted by the delicate hands against his chest, or the trembling whisper in his ear, or the tremor that runs through him at the ghost of lips against his, or the warmth of lean, perfect arms around him, pulling him tight even if just in the darkness.

Grinning, Arthur hits him in the shoulder. "You're usually bright and chipper. Come on, what is it?"

Merlin shakes his head. "It's nothing, sire. Nothing of consequence."