Chapter Text
♔♔♔
The two of them lay in bed, Merlin reading a news article and Arthur was reading a book on ancient war tactics, when Arthur looked to Merlin and asked, “Why do you think Gwaine hit himself?”
“I wouldn’t know. Maybe his brain told him to lighten the situation by slapping himself. Although, that wouldn’t explain Lance slapping Gwaine. I don’t know Arthur, heatstroke maybe?”
“You and I both know that’s not how heatstroke works, Merlin,” Arthur said, chuckling a bit. “Anyways, I’m going to go to sleep, you should too, you look tired.”
Merlin smiled as Arthur kissed him on the cheek before turning the lamp off and laying down to sleep.
Something was wrong, Merlin could feel it. The air surrounding him was putrid smelling and seemed to be closing in on him. He looked around, wondering why this scenery seemed so unwelcoming. There was no visible cause for worry, no visible cause for his unease.
Then, there, emerging from the thick air, was a form. Man-shaped and slightly slumped. As it approached Merlin, he was able to make out small details; the shape of the shoulders, the way it walked, and then-
“Arthur.”
“Merlin, you need to help him Merlin. He needs your help Merlin. Wake up, Merlin, wake up.”
“I don’t understand, Arthur. Who needs my help? Arthur? Arthur, who needs my he-”
He jolted awake. Arthur was also awake, staring at Merlin, wide eyed and pale. Tears were streaming down his cheeks and his hands raked through his hair. He looked like he was on the verge of a meltdown of some sort.
“Arthur, what’s wrong? What happened?”
“Oh, Merlin, I’m so sorry, I’m so, so sorry, Merlin.”
“W-what are you sorry about, Arthur? You haven’t done anything wrong.”
“No, I did everything wrong, Merlin. I am so sorry, so, so sorry.”
“Arthur, what are you talking about?”
“You… you were my manservant, I… I was a king. Oh God, I treated you horribly, Merlin. I should… I should have treated you better, you should… you should have been able to rely on me, you should’ve been able to tell me that you had magic, oh God. Merlin, I am so sorry.”
He was crying and stumbling over his words, his body was shaking with the tears that streamed down his face. Merlin was shocked, his brain kicking into panic mode and he tried to think of ways he could help Arthur calm down, ways he could help him through this remembrance of his past.
“Arthur, take a breath, then tell me what happened.”
“No… no, Merlin, I was blind and I treated you like horse droppings. I should… I should have listened to you. I should… I should have trusted you. Oh God, Merlin, I remember it, all of it. I am so… I am so sorry, Merlin.”
Merlin tried several ways to calm the Once and Future King, but none of them worked, mostly they only made him more upset, which in turn, made Merlin more upset.
I need to do something, he thought, I need to calm him down. How though? How do I calm a man who’s just starting to remember his past life? How do you calm a man who is crying because he thinks he treated you badly 1500 years ago?
He gave Arthur a good hard look before saying, “I’m going to make a tea, you can join me if you want and we can talk after.”
He stood up and hastily left the room, leaving Arthur with tears running down his cheeks and a confused look on his face.
When Arthur left the room, he found Merlin in the kitchen, his hands planted firmly on the countertop, his head hunched downwards, his shoulder blades pressed together. When Merlin noticed Arthur, he gestured to the table and said, “Sit down Arthur.”
After doing as he was told, Merlin offered him a mug of tea before sitting across from him.
“Tell me, without crying please, what you remember and what you don’t.”
It took a while but eventually they had cleared up the fog that was still in Arthur’s mind. They talked for a couple of hours, Merlin filling in every gap in Arthur’s memories, telling him that the times they’d escaped death or harm was Merlin using magic to protect the people he cared about, namely Arthur.
They’d gone through three mugs of tea by the time Arthur asked quietly, “Did Gwen ever remarry?”
Merlin looked at Arthur and reached across the small table to lay his hand on Arthur’s.
“Yes, she did.”
“Who?”
“Leon, or Leo as he is now. Both Gwaine and Lancelot had died before you and Camelot needed an heir. I didn’t agree with it, Arthur. It made me mad that she could move on so quickly. It made me so mad Arthur, so mad that I left Camelot and didn’t return until I got word that Gaius had died. By that time Gwen and Leon were on their second child and I didn’t stay for very long after Gaius’s funeral, that’s how mad I was. I couldn’t stand even looking at either Gwen or Leon or their children.”
“Were you mad, Merlin, or were you just upset?”
Merlin looked up at him, slightly confused. Had he been mad or just upset about Arthur’s death? Had he actually felt angry or had he felt lost?
“That’s not something I thought of before,” he admitted.
“Well, it’s better late than never,” Arthur told him kindly.
Merlin smiled at him and the two sat in silence for a few minutes before Merlin stood up and put their mugs in the sink.
“We should probably get back to bed, it’s three thirty.”
“Yeah maybe. Hey, Merlin, do you think the others will start to remember too?”
“Like I said, Mordred and Leo already remember everything, so it’ll be a matter of time before we find out about the others.”
“I guess.”
With that, the young couple went back to bed.
♔♔♔
As per Merlin’s prediction, the others didn’t start to remember everything all at once. Gwaine was first, then Lance, then Gwen and Morgan, then Elliot and finally Percy. And once they’d all gotten bits and pieces of their memories back from the past, they decided to meet at a small restaurant to talk about it, to fill blank spots and add detail to their broken up remembrances. Merlin and Leo did most of the talking and storytelling, but in the end they all had the story engraved into their brains.
“Is this why Mordred said that the relationship between Merlin and Arthur was weird to him?” Elliot asked?
“Yes,” Leo answered.
“I do admit that it is strange to have only previously seen these two as friends and to now see them as lovers,” Gwaine mused.
They all agreed, even Merlin and Arthur. There seemed to be a silent agreement to not speak in that moment, to just think and contemplate. And their thoughts seemed to speak more than their words.
“What are we going to do with this information?” Morgan asked.
“We keep it to ourselves and pray that no one else comes back.”
They all nodded, agreeing that they didn’t want any of their past friends, acquaintances, enemies, or love interests to come back, not because they didn’t want to see them again, but because they didn’t want to suffer further.
“Wait, Merlin, didn’t you say that Arthur would return when Albion’s need was greatest?” Percy inquired.
“I did. I honestly don’t know what Albion needs right now, but I’m sure we will find out at some point.”
Merlin did not know it, but Albion had silently incorporated into his being, Albion’s greatest need becoming his own. In doing this, however, Albion had also silently destroyed itself, meaning that it would never have a great need again, that this was the last time that these people would be reincarnated, the last time that anything was to be heard from them. It also meant that Merlin and Leo would start to grow old with their friends. It meant that Albion’s greatest need was Merlin’s greatest need, that Merlin had needed Arthur more than ever at that point in time. And Arthur had come back, Arthur had returned because Merlin had needed him to the most.
♔♔♔
The years had passed quickly, giving them all time with each other, time to love the company of old friends, time to go on with their lives, almost as though nothing was off.
The years had given Merlin and Arthur time to get married and to adopt two children, siblings, a boy of twelve and a girl of eight, at the time that they were adopted. Merlin and Arthur had become well-known among the community members as the two florists that were too madly in love with each other and their little flower shop to let their love for anything fall to waste.
It had been sixty years since the day that Merlin and Arthur were reunited, just over fifty years of marriage, almost fifty years since they’d adopted the siblings, thirty years since they had gotten their first grandchild and ten years when they’d gotten their first great-grandchild. The time had been very cheerful for the both of them, they’d loved and lost, yes, but it had been happy and beautiful.
It was early evening and the couple had decided to go for a walk in the park, just to breathe in the rain-heavy air and to watch the sunset. As they walked, they talked quietly about their plans for their great-grandchild’s birthday. They stopped talking, however when they came to a lake.
“Look, the sun’s setting over the lake, Merlin. Isn’t it beautiful?”
“It is quite beautiful, Arthur, quite beautiful indeed. But you know what’s prettier?”
“What?”
“You, our family, our friends, our love.”
Arthur chuckled, leaning over to Merlin and kissing him on the cheek.
They watched as the sun set and watched also as a pair of songbirds flew into the sunset, pulling small smiles from the elderly couple.