Three hours till arrival

"Arthur's coming today," Merlin mutters, stirring his drink with a peppermint-striped straw.

Morgana nods absentmindedly. Three hours, twenty minutes, fifteen seconds. (Not that she's counting.)

"Did you miss him?" Merlin asks bluntly, staring at her point-blank and Morgana pretends not to notice the implications of what those words have come to mean lately.

"Not much." The lie flies off of her tongue with ease; she's recited it exactly one hundred fifty-eight times to herself, trying to make it true.

He smirks at her and brushes the inside of her wrist with his fingers, getting up from his chair to kiss her forehead. "And I'm sure he feels the same way." Morgana pretends not to notice the sly smile on his face, the bastard, and sweetly returns the gesture with a poison-apple smile of her own.

Zero hours till arrival

There's a familiar sound of bickering as Gwen hears the door slam.

"Another girl? I'm not surprised she dumped you, but isn't there any girl that wants to be with you? Or wants your money or something? There's got to be some kind of site where you can find gold diggers to marry you..."

"I've already tried that, remember Sophia? And it's not that easy to find someone that wants to marry you, Morgana!"

"I've found it pretty easy to do, mind you. I've turned down my fair share of proposals in my life. And I haven't dated as much as you have! I swear, you must have dated half the country by now!"

"I don't even date around that much-"

"Viven, Elena, Mithian, Cara- are you trying to stay unmarried forever?" Morgana drops a suitcase on a couch with a distant thud. "When are you going to realize that Uther isn't going to allow this forever?" She turns around, her cheeks flushed and angry. She grabs for him, twisting his hand, and now she's practically daring him to rile her up even more.

Accordingly, Arthur corners her, backing her up against a wall with his hands pressed up against the wall behind her. His skin is tanner than when she last saw him and she can see the little red indentations on his neck from his uniform. It's a small detail, so small that she wouldn't have noticed it if it weren't for the fact that he's so fucking close, and she can smell the cologne that he wears for no one but her. One, two, three, four. She counts the little marks along his neck, trying to form some sort of pattern from them, some kind of distraction, but to no avail.

"I think Uther should find me someone new to date," he replies lowly. "Someone I like." His hand moves lower down the wall, mere inches away from her shoulder. The action brings him closer, close enough that if she moves a centimeter, they'd collide. She doesn't ask the obvious question (Like who?), choosing instead to trail her fingers down his white cotton tee. His stomach is stiff, hardened by months of hard training, but he relaxes when she touches him.

"Ahem."

Arthur draws back quickly, turning his attention to an embarrassed Gwen who stands behind them in the hall. She's bouncing up and down on her heels nervously, trying not to look at them.

"What is it, Guinevere?" Arthur asks smiling, ignoring Gwen's dirty look at the use of her full name. Gwen seems to forget her embarrassment and she glares at him.

"It's Gwen, and you two are blocking the hallway with your sexual tension," she snaps back, pushing past them as Arthur fidgets in place at the comment.

"We-" Morgana starts, trying not to blush.

"No, I-" Arthur interjects, and then coughs forcedly. "I'll start unpacking." Morgana brushes past him, stepping two, three, four, five times to get to her room, locking the doorknob.

Two hours since arrival

One knock, two knocks, three knocks, four. Morgana counts each of them; then ignores them irresolutely.

"Morgana," Arthur groans (no, he whines, like a child). "Open the door."

"I can't Arthur!" Morgana yells from her bed, flipping the page of her magazine. "I'm making out with a strange boy right now, I can't be bothered!" It's a pretty believable lie for her, given that there have been several occasions that Arthur's found her in some pretty compromising positions. She can almost hear him grind his teeth in frustration- then, much to her surprise, her door clicks open hesitantly.

"Well," Arthur says sarcastically, holding the doorknob. "Looks like I don't need to protect your honor then." He mockingly scans her bedroom. "And I most definitely don't see any strange men in here."

Morgana simply scowls at him. "Well, you're in here and you're pretty strange."

"Very funny," Arthur replies, moving over to sit down next to her. His smile is far too overconfident for her liking. "But you see... I'm not making out with you, so you're still a liar." Something within her twitches uncomfortably, but she brushes it off.

She rolls her eyes. "What do you want?"

"I just wanted to make sure we're going to the gala tonight." Morgana buries her face in her pillow. She'd totally forgotten about the New Year's Charity Gala, the ball Uther throws every year. They're supposed to bring a date for the gala, but somehow they always end up dateless by the time the gala comes around. It's become tradition that they go together, after several failed attempts to try and go stag.

Morgana nodded, taking the opportunity to push Arthur off the bed. "Now go and get ready. I refuse to take someone dressed like they're going to a Death Cab For Cutie concert."

Arthur shrugs his shoulders, looking at his current outfit despondently, and walks out. A few seconds later, she hears-

"MERLIN! WHAT DO STRANGE MEN WEAR TO GALAS?"

He's hopeless.

Four hours since arrival

Morgana pins back a curl of hair. She turns to Gwen expectantly, her hands splaying over the pleats (fifteen, sixteen, seventeen of them) as she does so.

Gwen gives her a teasing smile. "All that effort for Arthur?"

Morgana stifles the urge to roll her eyes. "Gwen, we've gone through this before. Arthur's a-"

"I know, I know, he's a despicable prat that refuses to settle down and has absolutely no good taste in movies, as evidenced by his unreasonable dislike of Star Wars." He's also despicable prat that you can't help feeling up in the hallway, she silently adds to herself.

Morgana nods in agreement for a moment, a smile illuminating her features again. "But seriously Gwen darling, what do you think?" She gestures to the blue and white confection of a dress.

Gwen raises her eyebrows at the neckline. "All I'm going to say is that Arthur's going to have a very hard time keeping his hands off of you." Morgana looks at her reflection with absolute satisfaction.

"Looks like we have ourselves a winner."

Five hours since arrival

"Gwen!" Arthur calls towards Morgana's best friend. Gwen spots him, waving a quick hello, before walking over in her waitressing uniform.

"D'you want a crab roll?" She picks up the delicacy from her serving dish.

Arthur wrinkles his nose. Uther has a special talent for choosing his least favorite foods for formal events like this. ('Don't want you going up another size, now do we?' 'For the last time Father, I'm not fat!') "No- uh actually, I was just wondering. Have you seen Morgana? I mean, I was just thinking because she's supposed to be my unofficial date- we should probably be seen together! No other reason, really." He chokes out an unsteady laugh, but he can tell by Gwen's smirk that he's not being very believable.

She pops the uneaten crab roll into her mouth, chewing and swallowing before she speaks. "She should be here soon. We came here together, but she just had to go and adjust herself, so-" Gwen's interrupted by the sound of fanfare, causing them both to turn in the other direction. Merlin, who's hired by Uther to announce each of the guest's arrivals, is blowing on a trumpet a bit sheepishly. He takes a deep breath, before nodding to the set of doors and beginning to speak as they open.

"And now presenting, Morgana Pendragon, daughter to Uther Pendragon, CEO of Pendragon Industries!" Arthur's breath catches, his eyes widening at the sight of Morgana walking down the grand staircase. Her hair's been pinned back, half up and half down, sharpening the contrast of her cheekbones. Her dress is covered in jewels and layers of fabric, yet she somehow manages to reveal more skin than anyone else in the room. "Fuck," he breathes, apparently incapable of proper thought (but really, what else is new?).

Gwen clears her throat.

"The chandeliers," Arthur corrects himself, redirecting his attention to an ornate glass chandelier attached to the ceiling. "They're quite beautiful…probably Victorian by the looks of it." Gwen gives him a strange look, walking back towards Merlin.

"We are not getting paid enough for this," she mutters to Merlin, who stands uncomfortably with his trumpet.

Merlin glances at Arthur, who's walking over to Morgana so fast he's practically running. "Much better than T.V. though, you've got to give them that."

Five hours and fifteen minutes since arrival

"Morgana," Arthur says. Morgana turns herself around slowly, pretending that she hasn't seen him running towards her since she entered the room.

"Arthur," she replies, putting on a fake-surprised tone. "I didn't even see you." The last part is a bit ruined though, because her voice breaks slightly as she casts her gaze over him. He's dressed to the nines, wearing a suit she's never seen before that fits him in a way that she's only seen on male models. "You look good," she says approvingly, in what she hopes is a very calm and collected way.

"You too," Arthur answers, eying her neckline. "Do you want to-" He gestures towards the balcony. Morgana looks around at the sea of people, all mingling and drinking, two things she doesn't want to do. Wordlessly, she follows him to the balcony, hiking her dress up a bit so she doesn't trip. A breeze of cool air hits her and she shivers involuntarily.

"What?" Arthur asks. "Are you cold?"

"It's freezing out here."

"I thought ice princesses didn't get cold." She knows he means it as a joke, but she flinches all the same. She's heard the whispers on the streets, how Uther's daughter (stepdaughter, she wants to correct them) is cold and cruel. How she's aloof, frigid, snobby, that she's some kind of prize that men want to win.

"I'm not an ice princess," she retorts. It's the wrong thing to say though, because he's suddenly breathtakingly close, his hands on her cheek.

"But you're so cold," he murmurs softly, rubbing her cheek with his thumb. She swallows a bit, sprawling her hands on his chest to gain leverage.

"You are too," she retorts, pushing him away. He laughs a bit humorlessly and stumbles backwards, perching himself on the ledge behind him.

"That's us, the cold Pendragons." He pulls out a cigarette and lighter from his pocket, lighting it. She's never seen him smoke before, which intrigues her. She used to smoke a lot when she was a teenager. She ended up stopping though, after Ygraine died of lung cancer.

"Since when do you smoke?"

"I got lonely during service." Arthur looks at her, but it's as if he doesn't really see her at all, like he's looking directly through her. She decides to join him, settling precariously close to the edge of the ledge.

"You're not lonely now."

He puts the cigarette down, contemplating her for a moment. "I suppose not."

He pulls on a sleeve of Morgana's dress. "Where'd you even get this anyways? I've never seen it before."

His hands have been warmed up slightly by the flame of the lighter, but Morgana still recoils at the touch. "It's my mother's," she mumbles, hoping he won't make a big deal out of it. Vivienne had died when she was young, but she still remembers her vividly. Arthur pulls back, remaining silent.

"I like it on you," he says finally, so low she's not quite sure he even said it. Morgana snorts, but she's pleased.

"Thank you Arthur. You know how I simply burn for your approval." She gets a chuckle in response, watching him stamp out his cigarette with his foot. He gets up from the ledge, swiveling so his hands are pinned on either side of where she's sitting, effectively trapping her.

"Oh Morgana Pendragon." he whispers, leaning close. She's still situated on the ledge, making it impossible for her to move any direction but forward or risk falling onto the rocks below. She can feel his hot breath on her lips, and the grandfather clock rings one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve.

She takes a deep breath and kisses him.

Fourteen hours since arrival

Morgana. Arthur turns over, reaching for her, but she's not there. He groans, pulling the covers over his head. He's just gotten home yesterday and she's already left before he can say anything proper. Just his luck.

He gets up, rolling the covers off so he can put back on his boxers. All of her things are gone, down to the last hairpin. He moans and strides towards the bathroom, grudgingly picking up the toothbrush to brush his teeth. When he's done, he goes downstairs to their kitchen; only to find a very awake Morgana spooning cereal into her mouth.

"Wakey wakey," she says cheerfully, lounging on the couch.

"Hi," he says uncomfortably, unsure of how to approach her. "You weren't here," he says casually. "In the morning, I woke up and you weren't there."

Morgana dismisses him with a wave of her hand. "You realize we live in the same house as Uther, right? I don't think Uther would have taken kindly to walking in on us like that." Arthur's shoulders visibly relax and she laughs. "Oh my god. You thought I left you. You thought I forgot about you, didn't you?"

Arthur scowls, but doesn't say anything, merely helping himself to a spoon of her cereal before she bats him away.

"No worries, Arthur darling. I don't sleep with forgettable men." She kisses his cheek, putting down the bowl on a couch table. She finds his lips, kissing downwards one, two, three, four fi-

"Fuck, Morgana- Uther-"

"Uther's gone to work," she reminds him, unzipping his pants. "We've got the whole day to do whatever we like."

The bowl of cereal lays untouched.

Sixteen hours since arrival

"Grocery shopping." Morgana says wickedly. "You said I could choose what we could do next and I choose grocery shopping."

Arthur scoffs. "You want to go grocery shopping? When I said you could choose, I was hoping for some kind of top secret Russian sex position you found out from a yoga instructor."

Morgana feigns hurt. "You don't want to go grocery shopping with me?"

Arthur considers his options, watching Morgana as she pouts adorably at him. He can either stay at home and watch her pout all day, or go grocery shopping which is disgustingly domestic- not that he's opposed to being domestic with her. (God, what has she done to him?) "I'd love to go grocery shopping with you," he replies, already regretting his words.

"Good!" Morgana slips into a pair of jeans and kisses him on the cheek. "I've been meaning to get some granola, so you can get your wallet and we'll be on our way!"

"Why can't you get your wallet?"

"Because," Morgana replies, grinning. "I'm a fucking lady. And gentlemen pay for everything."

Arthur rises from the bed, wrapping his arms around her. "But Morgana, I'm not a gentleman." That makes her laugh and she throws her head back, pulling away from him.

"I know, Arthur. But you should be paying all the same." She shoos him away with her hands, grabbing his car keys on her way out the door.

"I'M DRIVING!" She calls gleefully, dodging pillows that Arthur throws at her (two, three, four of them). She pauses in mid-run, peeping out behind the corner of the door. "And Arthur? I've SO got you wrapped around my finger." Arthur cards his fingers through his hair, watching as she skips out with an annoyingly cheerful gait.

Quietly, he takes out a small slip of paper from his pocket, crumpling it up and leaving it on his bedside table. "One more day," he says to no one but himself. "We have one more day." (Twenty four hours, one thousand and forty minutes, eighty-six thousand four hundred seconds.)

Sixteen and a half hours since arrival

"Have you found the cereal?"

"Check."

"The popcorn?"

"Check."

"Bread?"

"Check."

"And last, but not least, the granola?"

"Yes." Arthur hovers over the last check box, marking it off with a red pen. "I can't believe you actually have a grocery list. I didn't realize people actually used them."

Morgana crosses her arms. "And how on Earth do you buy groceries?"

Arthur shrugs. "To be honest, I haven't bought them in a while. Army buys our supplies."

She rolls her eyes, jostling him softly. "That's no excuse. I will not tolerate someone who can't buy groceries."

Arthur raises his eyebrows. "That's the deciding factor? Whether or not I can buy groceries?"

Morgana nods emphatically.

"I cannot believe I'm saying this, but I will learn to buy groceries." Morgana tucks one, two, three hairs behind his ear for him and shoves the cart over to his so he can push it.

"There, we're practically dating."

Thirty hours since arrival

There's a small humming sound in the room and the air burns her throat. It's too stuffy, too constricting, and she can barely breathe, she's suffocating. Every part of her burns like hell, red and gold and she's woven in Pendragon red, till she blisters to ashes. Morgana shoots up, her skin is clammy and her throat scorches with a sickening foreboding. "Just a dream," she reminds herself aloud, but the words stick in her throat. "Just like all of the others were just dreams."

Arthur opens his eyes groggily, watching her as she breathes in and out unsteadily. "Morgana?" She gives him a hesitant smile, but he doesn't buy it. "What's wrong?"

Morgana straightens herself so her back is flat against the headboard. She takes two shaky fingers and presses them closely to the inside of his wrist to test his pulse. "Tell me," she demands.

"Do we really have to do this? Again?"

"Yes. I need to know you aren't lying to me." They do this every time, and every time he complains and complies. They did it last summer when he came back for a week and she kissed him under fireworks and he tasted margaritas on her lips. And they did it again in December, when she was cold and lonely and they had sex in Gwen's bathroom at a Christmas party. It's a recurring cycle and he sometimes wonders if they're inextricably linked or they're just too broken to be loved by anyone else.

"Fine," he finally says, closing his eyes and waiting for the inevitable question.

"When are you going back?" She knows the answer before he says it (she always does), but every time she hopes that the answer in her head is a lie, that maybe she'll never have to know one day when things come to an end.

"Tomorrow." His pulse doesn't change, it still drones the steady beat that it always does, but his truth doesn't comfort her.

"Oh." Morgana pulls away, cradling her arms and knees together and rocking. She'd rather he have lied, not that it makes much difference. "I don't want you to go back." The admission lies there in the open, stripping her bare for him to see.

"I have to. It's my duty." His voice is determined and hardened, and she knows he's right but she doesn't want him to be. "Isn't that what you always wanted for me? To do my duty and damn the consequences?" It is. She remembers telling him that, word for word, when he got deported again back in July. That time was different though. That time she had a dream and in it, he came back, safe and sound and sleepy in her arms.

"Things change." Morgana forces herself to look at him, to see the monster she's created. He's become rigid and more brazen since she's last seen him, but when she touches him he still turns to jelly. She can see the sinews and muscles that have developed through excruciating training, the stiffness in his upper jaw when he talks, and how he just slightly favors his left leg from his right. And worst of all, she can see the places on his leg where he still has scars, one from combat, another from a freak accident in Myanmar that he still won't tell her about.

Arthur gets up from the bed, kissing the top of her head. "I'm coming back, you know. I'm just leaving and coming back, like I always do."

Morgana reaches out for him, terrified. "No. You're leaving forever." She says it like a prophecy, her voice matter of fact.

Arthur wants to brush it off, make a joke that will make her smile but he can see the terror in her eyes, the sheer fear. He tries to think of something to say, but they're interrupted by a knock on the door.

"Arthur!" Merlin peeks into their room, looking not at all surprised to see Morgana in Arthur's bed. He respectfully averts his eyes downwards though, due to the fact that Arthur's only half-dressed. "Uther's coming in five minutes so you two might want to…pull yourselves together before he comes."

"Uh… yeah," Arthur replies, glaring angrily at Merlin for spoiling the moment. "Listen, Morgana. I'm coming back, okay? Don't worry about it." She still looks worried though, so he kneels down and clasps her hand. "We'll meet by the lake, okay?"

"Avalon?"

"Yeah, that one. I'm supposed to be coming back in a month and when I do, meet me there. We'll sort everything out, I promise." He smiles at her and she smiles back, but his words are empty and he has already become a hollow shell.

"Avalon," she says quietly when he leaves the room. "The place where it all ends." And when her eyes burn fire when she sleeps, she pretends that this time the stars might be kind and look upon them favorably.

Zero hours till depature

"This is it," he says finally, standing up to board the plane. His feet feel like lead weights when he turns, watching Morgana as she digs her nails into the fabric of the chair. She refuses to look up at him, even when he insistently tries to push her chin upwards. He heaves forward, crouching down so he can get a better look at her.

"Morgana, look at me."

She turns her head up, her forehead creased with worry. "I'm coming back, okay?" Something about that sets her off and she shoots up, clawing his wrists. Morgana wrenches him backwards, the shock of it nearly sweeping him off his feet.

"No! I will not let you go!" She's strong, unusually so, adrenaline pulsing through her and making her immovable. He tries to draw her in, to wipe away her tears (she hadn't even realized she was crying), but she resists. "Arthur, please, I beg of you- you cannot go!"

He manages to pulls her off of him, her nails leaving long streaks of scratches on his arms (thirteen, fourteen, fifteen of them) "Morgana, please." They're starting to garner attention; people are eying him distastefully and the flight attendant clears her throat. He's never seen her cry before and every detail about it fascinates him while simultaneously sickening him. Her cheekbones are hollow and her lips are broken from constantly biting them. She's brittle and when he raises a hand to touch her cheek, she winces. "Morgana- please. You can wait, can't you? I'll be back, soon- and you and I, we'll go back to how it was before."

She finally laughs, forced and filled with nothing that resembles humor. "I'll wait," she murmurs sadly against his ear. "Oh Arthur darling, you're going to make me wait a lifetime." Her voice is breathy and she wavers on the last word, relaxing her grip on Arthur finally.

"Thank you," he replies kissing her softly. She holds onto him for a moment, her hands trying to memorize every small detail of him, and then lets him go. "Goodbye," he smiles, but everything feels so dead and black and white that he knows she can see right through him. He waits for a reply, but she doesn't say it back, merely shaking her head and looking up to the sky as if for guidance.

So he turns around- and every step he takes towards the plane writes an ending to the story Morgana has already dreamed a thousand times before.

Seven hundred twenty hours since departure

"You can't do this forever," Merlin says, sitting down on the rock next to her.

She doesn't answer at first, dipping her finger in the stream and watching the ripples it makes. "I'm not doing anything."

Merlin sighs. "That's the problem." When she doesn't even so much as glance at him, he tries a different tactic. "I hear you're engaged, then. To Valiant of all the people."

Morgana smiles at that, smiles at the irony of it all, smiles at the thought of marrying someone that isn't Arthur. "So I am. Uther certainly approves."

Merlin traces the Druid tattoo on the inside of his wrist languorously, trying to think of what to say. "You're not going to actually marry Valiant, are you?" It's a rhetorical question; he knows she won't, so he answers it for her. "Where will you go then? Somewhere far away where they can't find you?"

She shrugs her shoulders, standing up and gazing at the lake. "Wherever I want. Maybe Switzerland, I hear it's nice this time of the year." She turns her attention to Merlin, who still is sitting, crouched, by the shore. "But you're not here to talk to me about Switzerland, are you?" Merlin recoils at that, his mouth curving downwards. "Why are you here then?" She cocks her head to the side, examining him. "You got the letter, didn't you?" She says the words lightly, but the words eat away at her like they always have all these years. She's imagined this moment a countless number of times, the way she should react, but nothing could have prepared her for the dreadful finality of the moment.

Merlin nods, and she can see the way his hands lay heavy by his sides now, laced with regret. "I'm sorry."

She bends downs, resting her head on his shoulder. He doesn't say anything for a while; she just watches the way his chest moves, inhales, exhales. After some time, he gets up, dusting the gravel from his knees.

"Does it get better?" He doesn't even look at her, just stares straight ahead at the horizon. He can't bear to look at her.

She nods just a fraction, but the action itself tires her, makes her feel like a liar.

Merlin shoves his hands in his jeans, swallowing hard and kicking aimlessly at a small boulder. "He loved you, did you know that?" He chuckles darkly, biting down on his cheek. "Or did you see that in a vision too?" He's bitter, so fucking bitter, when he knows he shouldn't be, but he can't bring himself to care about her feelings right now.

That makes Morgana waver, makes her guard go up again. She wants to yell at him, or scream at him for being an ass, but she's too tired for that now. She's always too tired. "No," she replies softly. "I didn't." She should have though, should have noticed all the little discrepancies (too many of them to count) that fell through when they were together. How he breathed her name in her hair when she curled up in his lap. When she nursed his wounds after he got into a bar brawl and he told her a bit drunkenly that he liked the way her eyes looked in the light. The time Arthur sat outside her door for two days after she found him kissing Gwen. It all fell together, like scattered pieces to the jigsaw puzzle they tried to solve for months before deciding that their energy was better spent on sex. Not that it mattered now.

"Merlin," she calls to his already-retreating form. He glances back towards her. "Did he know? That I-" She tries to choke out the words, (that I loved him too), but they feel so heavy and incomparable to what he makes (made) her feel. "That I felt like that too?" She says instead, not daring to look at Merlin's face.

"Yeah," Merlin bites his lip. "I think he did."

(And Morgana Pendragon finally stops counting.)