The Redemption Arc (A BBC's Merlin Fanfiction)

Chapter 32

Merlin clutched his chest. The pain was unbearable. Morgana. Morgana. She was all he could think of. When the haze of shock wore off, he realized there was no point in clutching his chest. The pain was wrenching, but it was all in his head. All in his mind. In his heart. He could not bleed, although he could cry tears of blood. 

He does not know how he found them. He remembered taking off in the direction Morgana had set off in. And after a while, he found them. 

Morgana. Arthur. Mordred. 

Arthur and Mordred were both bleeding through their armors. But Morgana was just as pale, breathing just as heavily. 

He had been so relieved at having found them, but then why was he so consumed by anger? 

Mordred was eyeing Arthur's sword. 

He was so beyond joyful at having found her alive, well, in one piece, but Merlin's eyes dragged over his best friend and he was enraged. 

He stalked over to a pale Morgana and held her by her shoulders. 

"What did you do?" He was screaming. Why was he screaming? 

"Merlin, I--" Morgana could not talk. She was sobbing. She was breathing through her mouth, and they were ragged breaths. She had to cover her mouth with her hands, she felt she had no control over her body. 

"I-- I want to save him. Please, save my brother. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Please. Please save Arthur." 

Merlin let go of her shoulders, and his arms automatically reached out as her knees buckled. Morgana pushed his hands away from herself and towards Arthur. 

Merlin looked at him. The one Morgana had called "brother". The one he had always considered his brother. The other side of the same coin. 

Now breathing raggedly, with a gaping wound in his abdomen. Dying. 

"You did this," Mordred seethed. 

Merlin could not look at him. He advanced towards Arthur, whose eyes were still on Morgana. His mouth opened a few times, but he could not speak without wincing. He wondered if Arthur knew what Morgana had done. What she had tried to do. 

"You gave him a sword made of a dragon's breath," Mordred mercilessly continued, enraged at not being paid attention to. 

"And you took Morgana's." Merlin finally allowed himself to speak. 

"We are both dying, and it is all your fault, Merlin." Mordred's voice had become shrill, and he clutched his chest harder. 

Is it? Merlin felt his head spin, his eyes sting. Every bone in his body knew never to trust Mordred. Even as a little boy, Mordred was someone his mind knew instinctively to repel, to never trust. But as he watched two bodies bleed out, and the powerful aura that stung his head, he wondered if Mordred was right. As Mordred's eyes went glassy and blank, Merlin thought he might not look so different from Mordred's dignified corpse at the moment.

He heard a million voices at once. He could hear the clang of swords fighting for lives, and chirp of birds, unaware of these pointless human lives. He could hear the ragged breath of two fighting to live, and the breathless sobs of another, praying and crying for the same. 

Morgana was breaking down. And yet, she had one hand over Arthur's wound. She wasn't praying, he realized. She was trying to cure him. 

A shudder went through Merlin's body as he realized he could relax. The prophecy had come through, everything had been fulfilled and here he was at the Fall, at Camlann, as Arthur was taking his dying breaths. He could die right here, next to the soul he had loved more than he could have ever known while he was vibrant with life. But knowing Morgana was trying to save Arthur over Mordred did more for his ugly, human soul than he wanted it to. 

He bit back his own sobs and his overwhelming feelings to touch Morgana, hoping he was wrong, and all but buckled. Morgana felt...strange. He touched Arthur, and he, too, felt as if there was an energy within them he could not understand. 

He closed his eyes, and gasped. He could not feel Morgana's soul within his own. It had been broken, and divided again and again, in pain, in longsuffering, in love, until it had dissipated into his bloodstream and left him with a tingly feeling he could not comprehend. 

"Morgana," he said quietly, in horror. "Why-"

"I have to," she sobbed. "I have to do this to save my brother. He's all I have, Merlin," she looked up at him. He had always known her eyes were two colors, but they had never shown the war within her self as it did in this moment. 

"You've been brought back from the brink of death yourself, how could you think you could do this? How could you think you could bring back Arthur with a life force that barely exists?"

Morgana fell quiet, tears still silently streaming down her eyes. 

Merlin fell to his knees. Gaius was sick, back at home, still in the throes of a wound that never healed. Even if he could somehow miraculously get to him, he wondered if he could tell him the same story twice. He wondered if Gaius would see Arthur at all, if it would not be Uther all over again. Gwen was far away, relatively safer, commanding an army that would have no monarch if not for her. There she was, fighting and praying for her husband, and here he was, doing the same thing a little differently. Aithusa and Kilgarrah, his only hope as a dragonlord, was the doing behind all this, for their breaths had now taken away Arthur and Mordred's. 

"Please," he cried to Morgana. "I can't lose you both. I can't." 

Why would Morgana try to save Arthur with her life force, knowing what he had told her? He knew the answer, he knew it, but he couldn't accept it. He wished he had known better. He wished he had gotten to them faster. He wished for so much, and it was all pointless because he could end up losing everything for love.

"My sister once told me," Morgana said, her voice much calmer than he had expected, "that the ones we love cannot be taken away from us. It is the promise of the universe, and it is the only reason we continue to love in the face of death. If they could be taken from us, then love would be meaningless, and so would be life. We would die before we had ever known life." 

Merlin put his hand over hers, on Arthur's wound. He wanted Gwen here, so she could say her farewell to the one she loved most in the world. But he could not, for the sake of a kingdom that meant nothing to him, and everything to Arthur. 

"What were his last words?" Merlin whispered. He hated what he said as soon as it left his mouth, because it was admitting that he was gone, that they could try but it would mean nothing. 

"He saw a vision, Merlin," Morgana smiled through her tears. "I think he saw you. He said, 'I know everything you did for me, my friend. Thank you.' I think he saw all of us, but these were the only words he said out loud. His last words were only for you." She smiled, and her eyes were a little brighter, a little hopeful, and Merlin could not help but wonder if she saw death as he did.