A/N: So I recently got Netflix- I know, I know, but still- and after stacking up an instant queue of some twenty items long, I started moving down the 'you really need to watch this' list given to me by friends who obviously know me too well. I watched the first episode of each show on the list before moving on. Merlin was item number four. Three weeks later I have yet to move on to Item Five on the list.

Set in Kentucky because I wanted Arthur on a horse ranch, and Bourbon County is one of the most beautiful places in the world. This is not slash- a shocker, for me- although you are certainly free to interpret it thus if you are so inclined. There is some Arthur/OC, but it's very minor, and really only a plot device. There may be something of a sequel in the works, depending on how this goes over.

He is born, this time, in May of 1983, on a ranch in northern Kentucky. He grows up to be tall and broad-shouldered, with blue eyes and blond hair, a strong handsome young man- just like always. He is named Arthur still, because it takes something much stronger than simple human willpower to turn Destiny off its path.

Like most other kids in his educationally-crippled country, he reads T. H. White's The Once and Future King in high school- tenth grade, in Arthur's case. Most find it long and boring and too clunky and loaded down with subtext; a five-hundred-page brick with all the excitement and educational value therein. Arthur, however, doesn't have any problem with it, mostly because he gives up on it fifty pages in. It feels wrong, the characters like cardboard cut-outs of real, vibrant people, the storyline awkward and off-center, everything just a little too hard to swallow. But his biggest issue with it is the feeling it gives him, like he's listening in to people gossiping about him and having to say nothing as they get all the important details wrong.

His father passes away that spring, so Arthur's lackluster performance in school is easy to explain. He gets his GED that summer and devotes himself to the ranch, which isn't really necessary- the manager is a good man- but Arthur is more hands-on than his father. He's good with horses, and so devotes himself to them, leaving the rest of the ranch to the hired hands. And soon enough, what he thought of a book he didn't really read ceases to matter.

It's ten years before that feeling of wrong comes back.

Charlotte Mayfair, his high school sweetheart and longtime girlfriend, is a romantic. She watches True Blood for the love story and reads those cheap romance novels and has had her wedding planned out to the detail from the age of ten. Arthur knows she's casting him as the groom in her more recent wedding fantasies, even though he hasn't proposed or even given any indication that he intends to, and finds he can't bring himself to care about it one way or the other. Charlotte is comfortable and easy and his focus is on the ranch and the horses and Charlotte fits neatly into the room left over. He can forgive her an odd quirk or two.

So he isn't surprised when, upon hearing of a Renaissance fair up in Ohio, she immediately declares it a 'very romantic' idea and decides to make a weekend trip of it. Arthur indulges her, putting his foot down only in regard to the costume she wants him to wear, because it's a two-hour drive at most from the ranch and she's just catty enough to make his life hell if he gives her reason.

When they're at the Faire- and mood-killer Arthur is still wearing jeans while Charlotte is prancing around in a corset- it happens.

Arthur is only vaguely aware of him at first, just another person in a crushing crowd of people. He's tall but slender, verging on scrawny, and couldn't hold his own against the push of the lunchtime crowd even if you gave him a bulldozer. Finally he rebounds into Arthur, shoving the heavier man forward into the counter of the food stand, the wooden shelf digging into his ribs hard enough to drive the air out of him on a grunt.

"Sorry," the human pinball says, half-turning to face Arthur, still struggling against the people like a salmon going upstream. "Didn't mean to-" And he stops dead.

"Watch it, idiot," Arthur snaps, tone almost fond for some insane reason, and for one long second he's surprised when his own voice comes out with the familiar Kentucky twang. Then he meets the other man's eyes, wide with surprise, and the world around them simply ceases to exist.

For one long moment he remembers.

Then the twenty-first century returns in a rush, and the man pushes off from Arthur and stumbles backwards into the crowd. Arthur's too busy trying to figure out reality from memory from insanity to give chase, and by the time it occurs to him, it's far too late.

Not that it matters.

Charlotte insists on watching the jousting match. Normally Arthur would enjoy it, although he wouldn't admit it if asked, but this time…

The king in the stands is a gaudy figure, the overdressed royalty portrayed on poker cards. Arthur looks at him and remembers another, a tall man dressed in simple black, short-cropped hair and hard eyes and a scar over his right brow, and Arthur can't tell from the mishmash of memories and emotions if he loved or feared this man. Quite possibly both.

The queen Arthur simply dismisses, as if she isn't there. In his mind, that seat has always been empty.

The princess is blond and tiny, a delicate little creature, and Arthur stares long and hard at her. He sees raven hair and lips red as wine twisted into a smirk, and chokes on the tangled mix of hate and betrayal.

Then the black knight- because there's always an evil knight in these stupid plays, and he's always wearing black armor- appears on the field, and Arthur is choking on a different set of memories. By the time the jousting begins- an echo of pain in his right side, a feeling of being stabbed, the memory of the horse beneath him and the driving blow of impact in his shoulder and the heavy heat of his armor- he can't take it anymore, and he fakes a phone call and escapes the stands.

He gets around behind the stands and leans against one of the support beams, breathing harshly. He listens to the sound of hooves tearing up the turf in the arena and remembers- his own voice, it's supposed to hurt, it's not a pillow fight- and fights the rush, trying to find his footing in the slip-slide of memories that are his and yet aren't. He curls his hand into a fist and punches the beam, hard enough that he can feel blood rising up out of split skin over his knuckles.

He doesn't know what makes him look around. A warrior's instincts, perhaps.

"I'm sorry," the young man from earlier says, grave and somber. He takes a few steps towards Arthur, hands up like he's approaching some injured wild animal. Arthur rests his cheek against the beam and watches him.

"Did you do this?" he demands. He sounds out of breath, like he's been running.

"Yeah, I think so," the other man says. "On accident. I'm sorry," he says again. Arthur groans and closes his eyes, turns his face to press his forehead against the grubby, splintery wood.

"Stop apologizing and fix it," he says. He doesn't know why he takes such an imperious tone with this man, or for that matter why he thinks this, whatever this is, can be fixed by anyone, never mind this colt-legged moron.

"It's going to be all right," the other man says, close enough by now that Arthur could reach out and touch him. Arthur picks his head up off the beam and opens his eyes, studying him. He gives a sad, knowing smile, and before Arthur can ask what's got him so upset, the world goes- not black, just a bit grey.

He comes back to himself some unknown time later, finds himself alone and clinging to the beam like it's all that's keeping him upright. His hand aches with a dull pain but the skin is intact and unbruised. There's a curtain between Arthur and the memories, one he can almost see through. He can't remember anything about that… person… at all, not even gender. He figures it's for the best.

In the stands above the crowd erupts into a cheer. For one fleeting second Arthur remembers another time, when the crowd cheered for him, but then it's gone.

Then his cell phones starts chirping and what few hints of memories remained are scattered.

"You do not need to come rushing back here at every single almost-emergency, Arthur. There are other things in this world than horses!" Charlotte snaps as she staggers after him, her medieval slippers not faring well on the muddy grass.

"I offered to leave you there," Arthur says. He catches sight of the ranch manager heading towards them, watches the other man notice Charlotte and take an abrupt left into the stables. Wise man, Arthur thinks enviously.

"At a Renaissance Faire in Ohio," she sneers, as if the state of Ohio has done something to personally offend her.

"I'll make it up to you," he tells her, then lengthens his stride until he's left her behind.

The manager is standing by the door of the double-width stall, combing his fingers through a stallion's mane. He looks at Arthur and carefully doesn't say anything about how a city girl like Charlotte really doesn't belong on the ranch. Instead he moves aside, letting Arthur see for himself what this damn fool horse has done this time.

"Tried to jump the west gate," he says as Arthur peers awkwardly around, trying to spot injuries. The idiot thinks he's a good jumper and occasionally tries to go visit the mares down the road. If he weren't such a good bloodline Arthur would sell him, but a year's worth of stud fees will earn more than the highest price he could ask for.

"Get the vet in," he says, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. "I'll ride out and see if he did any damage."

"Blue's saddled up," the manager says, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder. Arthur looks back and sees a gunmetal-grey nose poking over a stall door at the far end of the building. "Was about to take him out before his royal highness here started fussing."

"Great," Arthur says, quietly pleased. Blue is a big friendly quarterhorse, an easy ride and fond of people; after four hours in the car and a sulking girlfriend Arthur doesn't need to add a feisty horse to today's list of woes.

He leads the roan out, smiling as Blue snuffles at his shirt in the hopes of finding a treat stashed in a pocket, and uses the gate to climb up in the saddle. They head cross-country at first, Arthur letting Blue set the pace at a casual trot. When they reach the western fence Arthur turns the roan to follow it and kicks him into a fast trot. Then, on a whim, he leans forward in the saddle and urges Blue into a gallop, the fence on his left and the wind in his face, and for a long moment he loses himself in the power of the horse beneath him, a sensation so familiar it feels like coming home.

He opens his eyes and sees not a sea of Kentucky's famous blue grass, but churned earth. The fence is lower, waist-height as opposed to shoulder, and on the other side is another horse coming his way, its rider aiming a lance at his heart.

Arthur sits bolt upright in the saddle, hauling back on the reins, and Blue squeals in surprise as he digs his feet into the ground to try to stop. Arthur manages an almost-graceful dismount but doesn't count on Blue's turning at the last possible second; he hits his shoulder on the fence post and drops like a sack of bricks.

He can feel that curtain separating him from the memories. He'd forgotten it for a time, dismissed it as he was meant to. But naturally he hadn't even managed to go a day before he had to take a sharp stick and start poking at it, seeing how well it would hold. He wraps his fingers into the grass, as if his hold on the ground was all that was keeping him from falling into the sky.

A moment later a shadow falls over him and a soft nose nudges the side of his head. He risks opening his eyes and finds everything as it should be, a curious and concerned Blue standing over him.

"Sorry," he says to the horse. He wraps one arm around Blue's neck, using the roan to pull himself to his feet. For a moment he looks at the saddle, then he turns and looks behind him. There's nothing there, only blue grass and the unbroken line of the fence.

Arthur takes the reins in his hand and leads Blue off. He doesn't get back on the horse until he's seen the gate and they're on their way back and well away from the fence.

After that the memories come and go, random and unpreventable, like a summer storm sweeping over the land. Arthur would think himself going mad, except it feels right, like he's a living puzzle and the pieces are starting to fall into place. He has felt, his whole life long, like he's missing something, a larger half of himself that was left behind. He feels incomplete, has for as long as he can remember. He had dismissed it as something he could do nothing about but now it's back, an itch he cannot scratch, and the memories of another life are driving him crazy with glimpses of everything he's been missing.

The ranch hands have always thought him peculiar so this new behavior is of no consequence to them. He's the owner, a rich man. He may as well live on another planet for as much as they understand each other. As far as they're concerned, there's a law somewhere that says he must be a bit batty. The manager notices, but he deals with animals, not people, so as long as Arthur's not a danger to the horses he's got nothing to say about it.

Charlotte notices, and unlike the others, she feels inclined to comment.

"You've been very distracted lately," she says to him one day. He doesn't bother looking at her, too busy trying to pry a nail out of the bottom of one of his work boots.

"Have I?" he asks, pausing for a moment to breathe. The work puts his nose about two inches from the bottom of the shoe, and there are very few pleasant smells associated with a working ranch.

What do you do all day, he wants to ask her. She keeps out of the way well enough but that's all that can be said for her. Then he wonders when she even moved in to begin with. He doesn't remember ever having any conversation of that sort.

"You know, Arthur, sometimes it's almost like I don't even know you," she says. "Like you're someone else completely."

Arthur pulls the nail free in a triumphant flourish and a sharp 'ha!'. He looks over at Charlotte, to share his victory, and sees a different woman, with café-au-lait skin and dark eyes he could get lost in. She would smile, he thinks. She would celebrate with him, even if only to humor him. Charlotte pulls away and frowns at him as though he's tried to hand her a toad.

"I know what you mean," Arthur says, and in his memory the dark-skinned woman smiles at him.

He dreams of his wedding.

The great hall is decorated in white flowers and green vines, white candles throwing golden light over everything. The crowd is chattering, excited, and Arthur knows he's grinning like the lovesick fool he is, but he can't help himself. On this one day, they will forgive him being a man first and their king second. His knights are dressed in their very best uniforms, solemn and somber- and sober, Arthur notes in surprise, and makes a mental note to reward whoever has managed to keep Gwaine away from the wine table so far.

There are a thousand things yet to do, and there are servants scurrying, fetching and carrying, passing messages, all of that, practically every servant in the castle. Except one. Merlin- for naturally, it would be Merlin- is back in the dressing room comforting a nervous Gwen, who apparently took hold of his hand two hours ago and has yet to let go.

Arthur stands in the middle of the great hall, an island of calm in the midst of the chaos, useless as only a groom on his wedding day can be.

A door near the rear of the hall opens. He doesn't know why he bothers- people have been coming and going for three days straight, the doors barely have time to close before they're opening again- but he turns. His gaze meets Merlin's, as if magnetically drawn. The servant is massaging the feeling back into the fingers of his left hand, but when he sees Arthur he smiles.

Then the head servant catches Merlin by the arm and, with a few stern words, sends him scurrying off, and Arthur goes back to standing uselessly in the center of the room and waiting.

"You rat!" someone screeches, and then pain. Arthur jerks awake, eyes flying open as he rolls away from the assault and right off the edge of the bed. He pokes his head up, peering warily at Charlotte. She'd slapped him, he realizes.

"What?" he asks. Squawks, really, and my, doesn't he sound impressive.

"You rat bastard!" Charlotte spits. She seizes her alarm clock, yanks the plug right out of the socket, and heaves it at Arthur. He ducks and it flies over his head, mostly harmless, but the plug whips around and leaves two bright red tracks over the bare skin of his shoulder.

"What is your problem?" he demands, not willing to risk standing up and making a target of certain vulnerable regions.

"You!" she barks. Her pillow hits the wall behind him. "Lying there, moaning for Gwen."

"Moaning?" Arthur echoes. His pillow is next, and her aim is better; it wraps itself around his face.

"Yes, moaning," Charlotte snarls as he removes the pillow and stuffs it under the bed. "Don't pretend like you don't know what I'm talking about. Who is Gwen?"

"I don't know," Arthur says, all honesty.

"Yeah, right," she says bitterly, looking around for something else to throw. "You're seeing someone else, aren't you?"

"No," Arthur says, only it comes out almost a question. "No," he repeats, firmly this time. He gives a dark little laugh. "How could I? I'm always either with you or the horses."

It occurs to him, after she gives a piercing little screech and tries to strangle him with the blanket, that there were better ways to have handled this.

Charlotte doesn't truly leave so much as fade away. Arthur can't pick out a day, or even a week, where she moved out. He doesn't know which one of them called it off, or if they ever even did. He just knows that at some point, he abruptly realizes that Charlotte is no longer a part of his life.

He blames this complete lack of observation on the dreams.

The dreams start coming almost every night. Some are good. Some are not. He remembers a griffin and a winged panther. He remembers a blonde woman with cold eyes, dressed in chain mail. He remembers a black-haired beauty sitting on the throne, the crown on her head stolen from the king kneeling at her feet. He remembers the first round table and the nine of them sitting around it, the quiet desperation and the grim determination.

He remembers Gwen, a warm comfortable weight against him, her head on his shoulder, fitting against him perfectly.

If he says anything else during these rememberings, no one is there to tell him.

Despite the dreams, the waking memories, it doesn't all truly fall apart- or into place- until he remembers Merlin. And not Merlin the clumsy, mouthy, well-meaning servant who so regularly features in a strong but mostly background role in his memories. Not even Merlin as the rest of the world knows him- the powerful, confident wizard, the man who held the world in the palm of his hand, the man time cannot touch. No, he remembers Merlin as his friend.

It comes in another dream, this one so real, so vivid, he can feel the bone-deep exhaustion and the ghost of pain.

The day after they save Camelot for-the-ninth-time-but-who's-counting-besides-Gwaine, Arthur finds himself sitting against the parapet on one of the walls, fingers tracing mindlessly over the runes in Excalibur's bloody blade. He smiles when Merlin sits down next to him with a bit-off groan, leans over and pushes his shoulder against Arthur's, each taking comfort in the other's familiar presence.

"You're welcome," Merlin says after a while.

"I'm not thanking you for that," Arthur says, reminding himself he's not happy with the warlock. "I distinctly remember telling you to stop throwing yourself in harm's way."

"Better me than you," Merlin says, and he sounds like he means it. Arthur jabs him in the ribs, lightly, but he still has his armor on and the tap becomes a punch that takes the warlock a few moments of graceless gasping to recover from.

"I'm just a king," Arthur tells him while he hasn't the breath to argue. "You're a warlock of untold power. I'm replaceable, you're not."

"Once and Future King," Merlin says, in that irritatingly knowing way of his, the capital letters inescapable. "You're irreplaceable too. And it's my destiny to-"

"If I hear one more word about your destiny, I'm going to throttle you," Arthur snaps, suddenly angry. Merlin subsides instantly but Arthur knows him better than that, knows he isn't agreeing so much as avoiding a fight.

"All right," he says with a grin instead. "We're both precious. Maybe we should have Leon lock us up in the vaults with all the other precious things."

Arthur hits him again, remembering from last time and pulling the blow so he doesn't do as much damage. He clambers to his feet, using Excalibur as a crutch and ignoring Merlin's wince at such treatment.

"Come on, then," he says, stretching as best he can in his armor. "We need to go help with clean-up."

A soft word from behind him undoes the strap holding his chestplate in place and it drops with a clatter. Arthur takes one deep breath, free at last, before turning a scolding look on the warlock.

"You're just lucky I don't make you clean up after me anymore," he says, looking back at the heavy piece of metal at his feet. Picking it up seems like so much effort.

"I'd like to see you try," Merlin says on a laugh. Arthur hefts his sword threateningly but the warlock just laughs, the giddy carefree laugh of a man who, hours after resigning himself to imminent death, finds himself still alive. And Arthur laughs with him, for the same reason.

It is the Once and Future King that wakes up the morning after that dream-memory. The rancher born in '83 is not gone so much as incorporated; an aspect of the king, like one of the sides of a carved gem.

He looks out the window over his not-Camelot home, and knows he could have done worse, and resigns himself to this life. Time has moved on and Arthur, willing or not, has to move with it.

Three weeks later Arthur inherits a charity case from a nearby animal shelter. It's a little mare with a big attitude, and if he won't take her, they'll like as not put her down. Arthur takes the mare, because it's not her fault the humans in her life so far have only taught her how to hate, and he has a back pasture that's not being used that she can stay in if she proves intractable.

Two solid months of working with her and Arthur can saddle her up and ride her safely two out of three times. He's in the main field with her, eyes on the horse- her ears act as a sort mood gauge, she does an odd sort of cockeye thing with them right before she tries to buck him off- when a flash of color at the fence catches his attention. He looks up with a scowl, about to remind the slackoff hand that he doesn't pay them to stand around and watch him work, only to stop when he actually lays eyes on his audience.

Merlin ducks his head at Arthur's long stare and wiggles his fingers in something like a wave. He pushes away from the fence, moves off towards the main house.

The mare is tossing her head, trying to tug the reins out of Arthur's slack grip. He snaps back to himself and tightens his grip; the horse twists around to bite him on the ankle and he slaps her neck, then points her nose towards the gate and kicks her into a gallop.

The warlock is in Arthur's office, fidgeting with a paperweight from his desk. He looks up when Arthur walks in, expression a potent cocktail of mournful reluctance and giddy glee. Arthur remembers another day, hundreds of years ago or maybe just yesterday, when Merlin had stood waiting for Arthur's judgment. Something so ancient and powerful and indefinable, and Arthur has the power to destroy his world with just one word.

Arthur moves past him, goes into the liquor cabinet and gets out the bottle of Blue Label Whisky and pours two healthy helpings. He passes one of the glasses over to Merlin, who makes a face into the amber depths.

"How long have you been watching me?" Arthur asks, trying for conversational. Now, as last time, he's mad, and has every reason to be. But now, as last time, he doesn't want to chase away this skittish creature.

"A while," Merlin says. "Not long- a little- just-." And he sighs and tosses back the whisky in one swallow, and the conversation, such as it is, gets put on hold until the warlock can breathe again.

"I never really stopped," he says, still hoarse, still grimacing. He stares at the glass Arthur had refilled during his dramatics as if it's a poisonous reptile poised to strike.

"Started the stalking early, did we?" Arthur asks dryly. When Merlin fails to look at him, he continues. "Why didn't you ever say something to me? Didn't you think I might want to know?"

"It didn't seem to bother you," Merlin says, talking to his hands, folded demurely in his lap, and Arthur fights down the urge to through his whisky in the warlock's face just for spontaneity's sake.

"How would you know?" he demands, cold and furious, and Merlin shrinks in on himself a little bit more. He looks young again, Arthur notices, as young as he had been when they had first met, way back when. He supposes age means nothing to a man outside of time.

Suddenly the office is too small, too smothering. Arthur finishes off his glass of whisky and grabs the bottle with one hand and Merlin's arm with the other, towing the startled warlock along behind him. They come to a halt on the back porch, looking out over the main field.

"Forget it," he mutters, shifting awkwardly, and can feel Merlin's confused stare. "Just… tell me next time, all right?"

I don't feel complete without this, he doesn't say.

He sits on the top step and takes a long draw straight from the bottle. A moment later Merlin sinks down next to him, bumping shoulders, looking relaxed and almost- fragile, so very fragile- happy. Arthur looks out at the green-blue grass and feels the comforting presence at his shoulder, and smiles.

"So are the others caught in this… reincarnation merry-go-round?" he asks, drawing a lazy circle through the air with one hand.

"Some of them, yes, I think so," Merlin says. He slides Arthur a sly look. "I couldn't say for certain. I've been too busy looking after you, like always."

Arthur sniffs delicately. "I don't know what you're on about," he says, lifting his chin a touch. Merlin's smile grows, and Arthur takes another drink of whisky to stop himself smiling back, and just like that it's as if nothing has changed.

"The world has no need for kings anymore," Arthur says, quietly, to Merlin one day. He almost doesn't say it at all. They don't talk much about what might be.

"Maybe not right now," Merlin agrees, eyes dark with his odd, arbitrary wisdom. "But someday."

He says it like a prayer and a promise, like it's all he knows to be true in the world. And Arthur decides he can wait.