Warnings: A tiny bit of gore-like imagery, but not that bad.

Author's Note: Hello lovelies! This was just a quick three-shot type thingy that popped into my head on the car ride from Boston to New York. In all honesty, neither the writing or the plot is all that great or original, so read at your own risk. Spelling and grammar should be clean, though. Anyway, here's the fic!

Setting: This is the "everybody lived" AU, except I'm thinking of spicing some stuff up with an alternate magic reveal having happened much earlier in the series with a different reaction with Arthur.

Disclaimer: I don't in any way own Merlin.

Uncle Merlin was supposed to be back five days ago.

Father was in a right state, and I couldn't blame him. I was just as worried. It had been a while since anybody besides Mother had bothered to lie to me about the danger in which all of my family - Father, Uncle Merlin, the knights, everybody - constantly put themselves. I hated it, not knowing whether or not they were ever coming home. It sounded so...girlish to say it, too much like my mother would sound, but that was how I felt, nonetheless.

"A king must be strong for his people, Will," Father told me the first night Merlin hadn't come home. Of course, he wasn't following his own advice very well. To be honest, it was a little scary. I had never seen him so - frantic. Worried, upset: those were normal. But the state of wide-eyed panic he seemed to be in, that was new. He paced the throne room floor all day waiting for news, looking for all the world like a caged wolf. Feral. Ready to snap. Even when Mother was sick, he hadn't been like this. I asked Mother about it yesterday, and she only looked at me with the saddest face and said, "He's already lost him once."

(Quick AN: this refers to the possible alternate magic reveal I was thinking of. AN over)

That hadn't sounded good, but when I tried to question her further, she told me to ask Uncle Merlin when he got back. She said it in such a fierce, un-Gwen-like way that I dropped the topic, but it had been bugging me since then. What had she meant, Father had lost Merlin? I hoped I'd get the chance to ask him.

I hadn't said goodbye to him this time. Worse, the last thing I'd said was…much crueler than just forgetting to say goodbye, and now he might be dead and I would never get to tell him I didn't mean it.

Even though I was sitting in the throne room where everybody could see me, I felt my eyes prickle. I shoved them back down roughly and tried to pay attention to Gwaine's analysis of where Uncle Merlin might be.

The long-haired knight had never looked more serious. It was extremely out of place on him, the perpetual rascal of the Round Table. "We've looked, Sire, everywhere in the forest. If he's hurt or out there on his own, we would have found him by now. Wherever Alisa's got him, it's either very well-hidden or outside the borders of Camelot," he finished gravely.

Father exhaled shakily, resuming the pacing he had paused when Gwaine had entered and running a hand through his blond hair. "We've got to find him, Gwaine. He's – valuable to the court. Best damn sorcerer we've got."

Gwaine threw my father a withering glare, and even I rolled my eyes. My father still liked to pretend he and Uncle Merlin weren't friends, which seemed utterly ridiculous to me. When I told Merlin so, he'd grinned and said, "You're more like your mother than your father. Gwen's much kinder."

I had puffed up at the suggestion that Father was somehow mean, but he had laughed and held up his hands. "It's not his fault," the warlock had said. "Arthur just happens to be a prat. It's in his nature." I'd laughed, then, too. Uncle Merlin and Gwaine were the only ones who dared to insult my father, and only Merlin called him a prat. Or clot pole. That was another favorite.

Gwaine cleared his throat, pulling me back to the present. "I'm taking Percival and Elyan to ride out near Carleon at dawn. With your permission, Princess," he tacked on as an afterthought.

"Whatever it takes." Father nodded.

All of sudden a sharp hissing noise filled the hall, as if all the air was escaping. Everybody froze. We recognized that noise – Uncle Merlin was coming back. He'd told me once that most powerful sorcerers could transport places without making any noise at all, but that he was crap at the spell. With a final pop, the warlock fully materialized.

I wouldn't ever forget that sight; I was taking that to the grave and I knew it.

Uncle Merlin was on his hands and knees about ten feet away from where my mother and I sat. One hand clutched at his chest, and with dawning horror I realized he was pressing against a gaping hole that was gushing blood everywhere. And Uncle Merlin, I could see then, was covered in the stuff. All drenched: his hands, his legs, his face – and his face! His face was a mangled mass of cuts and bruises, almost unrecognizable as his face. He was coughing like a maniac, and dots of blood splattered the floor before being engulfed in the red deluge pouring from between his fingers.

The three guards, my father, and Gwaine instantly surrounded him. "Merlin? Merlin?" I could only see their backs, and I started to stagger forward before my mother grabbed my arm. "Go out in the corridor, Will," she said urgently, her eyes locked on Father's bent form as he knelt over his brother. "Now."

I was sixteen, certainly old enough not to be ordered around where somebody I cared about was involved, and I would have said so too if my mind wasn't numb with shock. What I was seeing was unreal, impossible, and I wanted to unsee it. I wanted to pretend it wasn't happening. So instead of arguing like I should have, of being the adult I so often claimed I was, I turned and sprinted out of the throne room. I could hear Father shouting as I left. "Merlin, stay with me! Come on, dammit, you have to stay! I don't care if you never listen to another order in your life, you listen to this one or so help me I will throw you in the stocks for a month! Listen to me, idiot, you can't do this! Merlin!"

Whatever adrenaline fueled my mad dash from the hall fled the moment the doors closed behind me. My sprint morphed into a stagger as a wave of nausea rolled through me. I grabbed at the wall for support. The image of the blood leaving Merlin's body rose to the backs of my eyelids and I couldn't stop myself from retching.

I heaved for what felt like forever, long past when anything stopped coming up. I could still hear the muffled sounds of Uncle Merlin dying in the throne room – please let him live, I thought, please, please oh god he can't die - and the court physician didn't spare me a glance when he breezed past me. Eventually, I collapsed into a heap next to the puddle of sick I had made and just sat there with my eyes squeezed shut.

I had been around battlefields my whole life, and I had never seen anything like that. I'd seen better wounds on dead men. And how could he possibly lose so much blood? It wasn't possible, it just wasn't.

I didn't know how long I sat there. It was probably not longer than fifteen minutes, but there was no way of knowing for sure. Percival was the one who got me. I'd sensed a presence, and when I had opened my eyes, the giant man was in front of me, hand extended.

Even unsmiling, a grim expression on his face, Percival radiated composure. I think I might even have relaxed just the slightest bit. I took his hand and let him pull me to my feet. "Is he – is he alive?" I managed around the lump in my throat. I didn't care if it was undignified, I didn't care if it was unbefitting of a prince.

Percival's face softened around the edges. "Yes," he answered quietly. "He's alive for now, but we don't know much else."

I took that to mean Merlin was hovering on the very edge, and the tiniest push might send him off into the abyss. I lowered my eyes and let out a shaky breath.

Author's Note: So, whaddaya think? Tell me if you think I should go on with this, I'm not really sure I should. Reviews and comments are totally awesome, but go easy, please. It's been a stressful week. Love you all!