Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue.

"Destiny is powerful because we play into its hands."

It's hard to watch her fall, knowing somewhere in the depths of his endless mind what she will become.

"The witch."

His instant reaction is to deny, to shake it off like a rabid annoyance because…

"She's my friend."

But like any annoyance it is not so easy to fade, he watches her from the corner of his eye, from the side, from front on and sees it in certain hues of light, the future that will be. Must be.

As if he had her powers of foresight, he sees what she will become and struggles to couple it with what she is now.

Morgana.

His friend, his almost confidant, his trustworthy, his sometimes more then he can quantify…

Morgana.

Witch, sorceress, petulance, villain, evil, ley fey…

She is all of those things now and she will be all of those things one day but when she smiles at him, rolls her eyes at him, comes to his rescue and mostly when she begs, pleads for his help…it glimmers and it's gone and her future is her own.

And then, "Uther," and she speaks, and in the same shock he felt when her name had been mentioned with the sentence foe, he looks at her, jerks his head around to stare at her and he sees it again, come back to haunt him just like an annoyance, all consuming in its lack of gravity.

When he sees her fight, when he sees her watch as the axe falls, when he sees her draw her glance over the king and wake from nightmares that aren't really so, he knows that her future, like his, belongs to someone else.

Some higher power, with moulding fingers who sees only one path for her and draws her irrevocably towards it. Regardless of how false step it seems for her, how twisted, lost and far from the destination that his Morgana would, should walk, regardless…

Merlin watches it all, sees all the pieces begin to fall, to roll and shape her place among them for when she too, tumbles.

He wonders if he can change it, he twists between knowing he can't and preying he can because he knows where she will fall, to what she will fall and as he fills the water flask with the deadly poison he thinks he has accepted it.

But then she looks at him, horrible realisation crossing her beautiful face and it seems she at least had no clue of what she was to be and for one moment he hopes that he was wrong, that she was right and that the wheels had been in motion in a completely different direction.

Because he would rather be her murderer then a witness to her death.

He watches her as Morgause holds her close and he remembers that it used to be his arms, when the nightmares came, when those she loved fell, when she feared and when she was jubilant.

It used to be his arms that held her together and now they tore her apart, pushed her ever closer to that looming edge that he had been so wary of, that he had seen her straying to, falling to and disappearing over forever.

He had always hoped, always prayed that it hadn't been true, that destiny, her's at least and maybe his had been avoidable, that if they ran far enough the powers that be would leave them, allow them escape and change their great plans.

It is too late when he realises that he had the chance, had always had the chance, destiny wasn't going to burn down and smote him for changing its plans. He realises this as she tilts her head to his and there is more shadows then bright.

It is too late when he realises that destiny, fate, future was reliant upon him, he could have pulled her back to his path, clutched her to his side and matched his steps with hers and no one would have been the wiser.

Morgana wouldn't have known.

Wouldn't have known how he caught her before she fell, before her preordained future became her tragic present.

She wouldn't have known if he had saved her because once you are safe, the danger is past.

Now she looks at him, upon her return to the castle, she's different, she wavering between her selves and it's a lot easier for him to see, now, he's not looking for a monster within the heroine but the good within the villain.

He sees how he played the role and laid down the pieces, how destiny was counting on him, to make her future stone, to make it irrevocable, to push her over the edge that she had so blindly stepped away from.

Merlin watches his sorceress, his friend and realises that he made it so, that it's his fault as Camelot burns with her magic.

Help her, hold her, don't turn on her Merlin and it's all very different.

But it was never going to be so, for she was destined to be the villain and he was destined to be the hero who loved her and saw her for what she was. Had been.

Destiny was counting on him.

To fail.

To stand idly by.

To let her fall without catching her hand.

Her present was because of his past and he could change neither one now.

He could only watch and remember who she had been because he always knew what she would be.

When destiny got its way.

"The greatest ill of evil is to think that it has always been so."

A/n- Yes very messy, but it's based around the various and conflicting portrayals of Morgana, Morgaine, Nimueh etc from the legends mixed in with the TV version of Morgana and Merlins relationship which is angsty and weirdly fun.