Hiding

Chapter 18

Merlin awoke the next morning with the feeling that all was not right. He was, of course,  correct. He was not with his true love, and in fact that true love had sent him away. Perhaps there was more to the feeling, but he didn't care to explore it. Arthur had sent him away, told him to go, told Merlin he didn't love him. That was the most important thing, and with that thought he began to weep.
Gaius found him curled up in his bed with teary eyes barely an hour later and silently cursed Arthur for his pig-headedness. If only the two would just talk, then they could go back to being a love sick couple who made heart eyes at each other all the time and annoyed everyone with how cute they were. Gaius sighed and brought Merlin a cup of soothing tea. Merlin accepted it, but didn't respond much beyond that.
"Merlin, we will get you to Arthur. Arthur does love you, he's just a fool and didn't know what he was saying."
When Merlin still didn't respond, Gaius let him alone and went to find Morgana, Gwen, and Leon. They could help him get Merlin to go and see Arthur and maybe sneak him in if Arthur wasn't receiving visitors.
He was halfway to the Lady Morgana's chambers when he heard the warning bells sound. Whatever it was for, it wasn't near him, but he hurried to Morgana nonetheless. Odds were that there was an escaped prisoner or the monthly sorcerer had come to take their revenge on Uther, and he wasn't particularly excited to get caught up in that. He reached Lady Morgana's chambers within minutes and knocked on the door, which opened to reveal Gwen, Leon, and Morgana already together. 

"I do wish I would stay and talk about all this," Leon was saying, "but with Arthur, er, locked up, I need to go see what the alarm bells are about." 

"Of course, of course." Morgana responded, waving him off. Leon nodded to Gaius as he took off at a jog to find the disturbance. "Oh, Gaius! How is Merlin?"

"Still inconsolable, I'm afraid. I was hoping you three would be able to sneak him in to Arthur's rooms so that they could talk to each other. "

"We were just discussing that." Gwen piped up. "We just don't know if Arthur is being cut off from visitors, or if he's just not allowed to leave. And Merlin won't go in there on his own. He's too stubborn for that."

"And it may be suspicious if we try and drag Merlin in there if he doesn't want to go." Morgana bit her lip, thinking. "Maybe... Gaius, I understand if you think this is a terrible plan, but its the only one I can thinking of."

Gaius raised an inquisitive eyebrow, silently telling her to continue. 

"If we give Merlin a sleeping draught—I know, Gaius, let me finish—if we give him a draught, he won't be able to fight us on it. And I'm sure Leon could draw the guards away long enough for us to get Merlin in there without anyone seeing us."

Gwen looked like she thought that was an excellent idea. Gaius, reluctant as he was to drug his ward and sneak him into the chambers of a disgraced prince, grudgingly agreed that it was the best plan they had. 

Within minutes they had a solid plan worked out. They just needed Leon to return so they could fill him in on his part of the plan. Thinking of Leon returned their thoughts to whatever the warning bells had sounded for. It became apparent, however, that Leon might take quite a while when they heard loud bangs and crashes from inside Morgana's chambers. 

Meanwhile, Arthur lay on his bed, regretting everything he had done in the last few days. He had gotten the person he loved in his grasp, only to send them away, possibly for good. He had been cursed, and then revealed his magic to his father, the worst magic-hater in all of Albion. Oh, what a turn his life had taken. 

Sometimes, when he was sad, he would turn to the book Gaius had given him to learn to control his magic. Arthur thought about it, then realized that it was his magic that had been the true cause of his pain in the first place, because then Uther wouldn't have kept him in his rooms and he wouldn't be a danger to Merlin and he wouldn't have had to send Merlin away, and it was truly for Merlin's own good, and oh how Arthur wanted to wrap Merlin up in his arms and tell him that Arthur was never going to send him away again, and—