Those Who Waited (BBC Merlin)

Chapter 7: The Longest Night

A/N: Ok so I am starting my sophomore year of college!! As exciting as this is, it means less time to write. I have this story fairly far written in advance, so hopefully I should be able to update once a week, on Mondays. If I can't, then I should only skip one week and it'll be up the next Monday!

That night, as the moon had just passed its crest and was beginning its descent back into its temporary grave of hills, Merlin's eyes snapped open as harsh, strangled sounds finally drilled through his sleep. His back and shoulders were straight and rigid as he leapt smoothly to his feet from the edge of the bed, eyes swirling both bright blue and molten gold. The two had fallen asleep on his bed, the mattress tiny but the child even tinier so there was still space in between. That was extinguished now, however, as Merlin registered her thrashing limbs that had twisted in her dress and the thin blankets, and continuing to fling out and grasp at the air. The flurry of movements and yelps being thrown against the walls made her seem even younger than she was.

"Susetthe, wake up," he murmured, hands already enveloping her small shoulders and trying to coax her arms into calming. He felt the wiry muscles tense and whip about underneath his palms, his calls to her growing louder and more frantic as her distress continued.

Pain. The whimpers, strangled yells; the jerky movements as if exaggerated winces; the dramatic, repeated arch and curl of her spine. Merlin realized she was in pain, stinging from the inside out. The area under her sunken eyes and along her cheekbones was wet now, her lips visibly chapping as her eyes remained squeezed shut.

"Susetthe, you have to wake up and tell me what's wrong," he pleaded through gritted teeth, not minding that his grip on her arms was probably leaving bruises. The rough, torn material of her sleeves slid under his fingers, making him grip her tighter in efforts to keep hold.

The realization was as if he'd been riding and then knocked off: before, he was turbulent and fast, his mind and heart racing, and after, the world and time itself halted as his body hummed with roughly silenced energy. Pain. Inside. Sleeves.

He readjusted himself so that he knelt completely on the mattress, instead of half sprawled as he had been. A bit roughly, Merlin tugged the girl's body half onto his knees and thighs, one arm barring across her chest to keep her relatively still and the other grabbing her left elbow. A sharp yank tore part of the sleeve in half, and his fingers followed the line until the cloth fell away from her entire arm, up to her shoulder. There. He exhaled in a hiss as he found the shallow cut, no more than three-quarters the length of his little finger, just above the crease of her elbow. The cut was a dark pink, freshly healed, with just a few thin flakes of dark red dried blood—she probably hadn't even noticed it before. But the skin surrounding the cut was permeated with dark black stains, jagged and tangled lines creating a sinister web over the skin from her elbow to...

Merlin tugged at her dress, carefully revealing her shoulder and upper chest just below her collarbones. The webs continued. He swore under his breath.

"Susetthe," he murmured, bending so that his mouth was right beside the child's ear, trying to get her to hear him somewhere in her haze. She whimpered particularly, so he took that as a sign. "You got cut, probably by those soldiers, and the blade had some sort of poison."

She sobbed loudly and her eyes flew open to meet Merlin's hard gaze. Her brilliant indigo eyes were glassy and grey in her haze, them and her flushed face portraying her rapidly increasing fever. "It hurts now." He swallowed the thick lump in his throat.

"I know, I-I-just hold on, I'm going to fix it, don't worry," he rushed, laying her back fully on the bed as he stood and stepped to the closest shelf. His hut was small, each of the two rooms barely enough for a full-grown man to lie comfortably on the floor, but as he flipped through the numerous books and jars of herbs, it was larger than a bloody castle.

He'd never seen this, and he didn't have the actual blade or substance to help identify it, a challenge he had encountered many times with Gaius. As he'd learned, Merlin knew that medicines and even healing magic was particular. He had to be certain, or have at least some knowledge, before flinging plants and spells at the child. He muttered under his breath, words growing nastier and movements growing more desperate with each second that felt like an hour. Even the books he'd taken from—or made with—Gaius all those years ago had absolutely nothing, he growled. He didn't even have a second to reflect sadly on that experience...going through his pack and fixing, shelving, and even writing from memory the books on medicines and magic...recognizing and even trying to imitate Gaius' scratchy handwriting...

"Please!"

The shrill, demanding scream jerked him out of his frenzy, and he nearly tripped on his own legs as he whirled around to face the now still figure curled in a tight ball on the bed. The scream, despite it being of 'please', hadn't been a plea. There had been no begging, not even shakiness; it had been demanding, strong. Susetthe asked for—no, ordered, requested, wanted—company, to not be left alone, and the knowledge that someone was with her. Merlin stepped slowly until his knees hit the edge. The child was no longer thrashing around, instead lying on her side and shivering slightly. Her eyes were open, still cloudy but more closely resembling the night sky than before. And they were focused on him.

Weakly, Merlin sat with his legs on the bed and his back against the creaky but sturdy wall. His hands under her shoulder and hip, he positioned the girl to lie with her shoulders against his chest and her legs half on the bed, her head pulled upright and supported against the flat of his shoulder. She shook, her breaths shallow and ragged, and Merlin wrapped his arms around her in hopes of comfort. It seemed to work, because the child curled more into him and flicked her eyes up to his again.

"It hurts," she whispered. He nodded, breaking eye contact to pull the books from his shelves with magic, splaying them all open and across the bed and floor. The two were curled in the middle of a stormy ocean of yellowish pages, smeared ink, scratched writing and elegant calligraphy. The hermit warlock spent the next several hours clutching and trying to sooth Susetthe, and flipping through the books, a bit more carefully and with much more attention to any details that could give him hints. Perhaps he could create his own spell out of their pieces. Just something.

It was the longest night Merlin remembered since Camlann.

The moon sank, lost to the world until it would secretly reemerge in the daylight, and the sky outside was streaked with both fire and ink as the sun wasn't yet existing in its full glory. Merlin's body felt heavy, but he was far from sleep. Susetthe's breaths remained shallow, but were no longer frenzied and broken. They rattled in her chest, her small body seeming hollow as her skin was starkly pale, broken up by the deep, savage lines. The ocean-shaded eyes were pale and foggy, staring blankly from dark purple circles. Her damp hair fanned in tangled curls cross his shirt, and he finally noticed that they weren't just a dark brown like he'd initially thought, but a dark, molten gold.

"The sun is rising." The words floated out with her breath, and Merlin just barely heard them. He nodded, unable to speak.

"It does every day, every dawn, no matter what," he repeated her words to her, and she smiled. The curve was weak and stretched her skin over her bones, but it shone along with the dawn's pale gold light.