Merlin Headcanons

Memori

A/N: I hope no one's sick of the Alternate Realities thread yet, because that's what this is part of. There will be one more in this series: Chapter 100, the very last one.

Arthur wasn't entirely sure how old he was at this point. He'd known in his first life and probably could have calculated it out after the first few, but by now he had no idea.

He'd drawn out a few rough estimates though and the results were. Well. Frankly unbelievable.

It wasn't surprising that he'd started to forget things was what he was saying. It was kind of surprising that he was still . . . functional, but he'd noticed his memory had odd quirks it didn't use to. He suspected that something (Destiny, he remembered, every time he died) was keeping back memories he didn't need so as not to overwhelm him. (Later, he suspected that she also kept back others for the sake of her own amusement. Arthur was less amused, especially considering what had happened to his father the first time around.)

He forgot things, or he forgot the right context for them, but sometimes he could pass it off as normal.

He forgot his wedding anniversary. That was what Jennifer thought at least because it fit with her idea of who he'd been in Camelot before being reborn into England.

The truth was that he'd remembered his anniversary. The wrong anniversary, the one he shared with Gwenhwyfar. He'd thought he still had four months to go, but he'd gotten it wrong. He blushed and apologized and bought her the most expensive flowers in the shop and let the others tease him. He told himself this was normal, this was fine, lots of guys did this, and he was fine.

He wasn't the only one who forgot things. Those times when Merlin had been left to wait alone, he tended to forget a few details as the years passed. He asked Arthur to remind him sometimes - little things like what exactly he'd said at the Yule festival, sometimes, and big things like what his mentor's name had been others. It was the action that he forgot mainly, confusing details of this battle or that, allowing painful memories to be replaced with something gentler or something he'd seen or heard about elsewhere.

Merlin would turn to him with desperate eyes and ask question after question, trying to sort what was real from what was not, when Arthur wasn't always sure himself. He corrected Merlin's version of Camlann without thinking, and then, watching him panic and struggling to help, beat himself up, because how could he know? Maybe he was the one who was confused.

He forgot, sometimes, when he woke up which previous life this incarnation was tied to. If his friends were there, he could sort it out, but if it was just him alone, at least at the moment, he could never be sure. They didn't rotate in order.

He'd regained his memories once at the same time as Morgana, and he'd waited for her to make the first move because he couldn't quite remember whether this should be heartwarming, awkward, or life threatening. Morgana's reaction hadn't clarified matters which was unfortunate because he could hardly just go ask her or Merlin, "Beg pardon, I can't quite remember. Did Morgana kill my wife, or was Morgana a trusted adviser? Her hair was red both times, and I can't quite recall."

Actually, he couldn't have asked that even if they wouldn't have looked at him like he was insane because he didn't talk like that. The point still stood though, and forgetting whether someone was friend or foe wasn't normal.

(Well . . . There was that one time. But that wasn't so much forgetting as rapidly changing alliances, so that was different.)

He started leaving himself lists. This is your wife's name. This is how you died. This is your anniversary. This is the name of your son. This is where you work. This joke will make sense. This joke will make a knight punch you.