The trees were a temporary cocoon, shaking and ready to fly apart at the reverberating footsteps thundering towards them. There was a cliff. There was the approaching enemy. There was one slim path to escape, small and being closed in on more every second. And Merlin had collapsed.

It wasn't his fault. Of course he fell. He'd nearly been crawling anyway. Of course he fell, Arthur thought; it wasn't his fault.

"Keep running," Merlin gasped as Arthur stopped, hunched over and trying to breathe, one hand on his stolen sword and the other on his knee.

Arthur shook his head and liquid flew. He was wet. Was it sweat or blood from reopened wounds?

"Please," Merlin begged, voice thick with tears—pain or terror? "Please. You need to escape. Please run."

They wouldn't escape. They both knew they wouldn't escape. Perhaps at first, when Arthur had just cut their bonds and killed the guard, they'd foolishly believed it. But the enemy was on their heels and both knew they couldn't escape now.

"They'll kill you if you help me escape," Arthur said, shaking his blond head again, looking over his shoulder—they were coming.

He didn't mean kill. Kill would be a mercy. That was the hoped-for destination; Merlin would beg to be killed.

He already had.

"I want to go home," Merlin said suddenly, looking ashamed of himself from where he sat hunched into the base of a tree. "I want to go home. I want Gwen and Gaius… I want my mother."

He was babbling, but for once Arthur didn't feel the need to mock him. He understood. He, too, wanted to go home, but they wouldn't, and they both smelt of days in the dungeons. The only place they would go is back there.

Arthur looked at Merlin with pity, something he had become accustomed to doing very recently. No wonder the man couldn't run; he was hurt so much worse than Arthur was. Days. He'd spent days pulling his wrists and ankles out of place as wrenched, screaming his voice away, dripping blood from every piece of him, and every hour of it was now visible and obvious. Arthur had his own injuries – his limp, his cut face, his bruises and sores – but Merlin was worse.

Because they'd been after Merlin, really, not the king. Arthur understood why now, why Merlin could be held back with those bespelled, unbreakable bracelets, and he never had been successfully restrained before.

Arthur understood, and it hurt. It hurt them both.

They were wasting precious seconds, but Merlin simply could not get up.

Pretending they would be able to escape was all they'd had until now… So what was left?

"I want to go home." Tears were sliding down Merlin's face, over his cheekbones and to his chin. They'd tried to escape, and could not, so the enemy was coming with loud, expectant shouts. Merlin knew what was coming.

He'd thought it was over.

He couldn't do it again. His small white face was shaking; his lips trembling, barely meeting each other, his eyelids flickering. He was quivering all over.

Arthur swallowed as some of his breath came back, and that one agony was replaced by a million others. He glanced at Merlin, who was holding his ankles. Arthur could not carry him away, though he had tried. They hadn't eaten and Arthur's strength was spent. He had no strength left to lend, then, to Merlin, and he knew what was coming for Merlin.

Arthur trembled with real, helpless fear.

Merlin was crying, but Arthur would not. He straightened his back. Courage. He could give courage.

"We will go home," courage said, and Merlin opened his eyes to soak in the sight of his battered friend facing him.

"We will?" Merlin asked hopefully, like a bather testing the waters. He needed this. He needed to go home.

"Yes," Arthur said, his hand giving a spasm around his stolen weapon. He went towards Merlin, who watched him with trusting eyes. "Can't you see it?" Arthur asked as soothingly as he knew how. "We'll come home. They've all been worrying. My wife won't know who to kiss first; she'll want to grab whoever's closest. But she'll remember propriety and I get the kiss. Tough luck, Merlin."

Merlin smiled, eyes now half-closed in transient contentment. Under the veneer was the anguish, but he would go along with the lie. He nodded almost sleepily.

Arthur was next to him, now, leaning down a bit. The king could hear the people fanned out, searching. How he wished he could carry his small, beaten friend. His only friend.

"But Gaius," he went on, "will hug you and demand to know the extent of our injuries. He'll hug you, but not me; he hasn't hugged me since the day I became a knight. The towers of Camelot will seem to stand straighter for us, like they always do, and the courtyard stones will seem like the realest things ever, holding you up so you don't fall off the earth. You remember?"

Merlin looked amazed. "I didn't think you'd ever noticed that." Home. He could almost feel it.

Arthur's hands were trembling with torment. "I did. Do. Will." His voice was hoarse. "You see it? Close your eyes. Picture it. We'll get home."

Any other day the command to close his eyes would have sounded silly. Too tired not to obey his master, Merlin closed them, shut his blue eyes to the world and pictured home. His tears had stopped, and his shivering lessened at Arthur's words. His lips twisted up despite his wounds.

And Arthur hesitated only a second before he raised his weapon and drove it deep through flesh, through the heart where it barely hurt, and into wood.

The choked cry of pain that pierced the shelter of the trees wasn't Merlin's.

There was a pause and complete silence in the tiny clearing. Then, just once, just once admitted aloud – he never would again – he whispered, "I don't think I should have done that."

Arthur didn't look, wouldn't look, he knew there was new blood on the blade and he wouldn't draw it back out. He left it in the tree – in Merlin – and shakily drew away from it, putting his back to the cliff.

The searchers were now so close that Arthur could hear the individual words they spoke.

He turned towards the only open path, where they were closing in, and took it. He could not run anymore, but he walked fast. He limped, talking small little gasps of air he didn't want or deserve.

He could not escape, but he would not stay here.

A/N: I didn't put this at the front for fear of ruining the ending, but this was influenced by John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, which I just read. The situation is pretty similar, but Merlinified.

Also, anyone notice the whole Strength/Courage/Magic thing I did up there? So. Please review?