A/N: Since the last chapter was getting too long, I decided to split it into parts. This is the first one. Read the author's note at the end for further information.

x-x-x

Time; that black and narrow isthmus between two eternities -Charles Caleb Colton

x-x-x

Time is the most casual outsider, a third party having no interest whatsoever in the events of the mortals for its own infinity fulfills its existence. But in the rarest cases, where souls as old as that of hers are involved, even time is forced to slow down, maybe stop, to observe the intensity only such beings were capable of, the emotional gravity warping it to stretch infinitely.

Two years have passed - unobserved, unacknowledged - since the fateful morning of their departure from each other, the snapping of any and every thread of similarity that had joined them. Two years of emotional isolation, forcing herself to mingle and get lost among people, people she could hardly stand for their such frail souls, yet plastering a smile on her face for her sake more than theirs, in hopes to absorb the life she is stuck with. A feat that is made all the more hard by her instability, her uncontrolled anger bursting at inappropriate moments, mood swings as the memories took hold of her sometime, the claustrophobia from an old well becoming more difficult to fight in a crowd. She lives her days on, with a hollowness akin to that of a haunting ghost, silent yet bursting with noise - voices and whispers of a past she wishes to forget each day. On calmer days, she feels it. Feels the last lifetime wrapping itself around her, the girl of that life seeping in her bones to claim her mind and soul in this life. She is her. But she is not her. She is not a royal ward. Or a high priestess. She does not plan day and night for the fall of a kingdom that was once her home.

She is an architect. She is a girl with haunting sadness and echoing loneliness and long, quiet hours spent in thinking. She is a girl with a pencil and an aisle. Not spells and potions. Her past life is fraught with blood and death and misery and so much suffering and loss. And sometimes she thinks that she was better off without it. That living with an unknown emptiness was easier than finding the horrible past that fills it.

Her nights are spent fighting off exhaustion from self-imposed sleeplessness and curling in a tight ball on her bed at the end of each day, staring wide eyed at the floor, resisting the natural urge to fall asleep. It has taken her two years of gut wrenching determination to stop the waking visions of him; she has a sinking sensation that it is going to take much longer to stop him from invading her dreams. Until then, she has to make do with the half asleep half awake mind trap, suspending in a limbo, forcing herself to wake up hastily whenever the exhaustion tries to suck her in a deep slumber.

For she fears her dreams; no longer of the past life but of this one, of him; smiling, laughing, teasing and always morphing at the end into him crying, shouting, in anger and hatred, his eyes no longer beautiful ocean crescents but wide with loathing and disbelief, glaring at her accusingly. The dreams that make her angry and defensive, make her waking up screaming in the middle of the night, shouting reasons that would never justify the murder of people at her hands.

And she finds it loathsome. She finds it a disgustingly low maneuver on his part to blame her when he was the one who set her transformation in motion with that little vial of poison.

"It was all your fault!" she often finds herself shouting in the night like she did two years ago, "You betrayed me and expected me to remain loyal? You made it possible - you made me cut all my ties from Camelot and its people."

"You were already destroying everything," he shouted back just as heatedly, in that cave, on the night that was the beginning of a new year, and the end of more than just that, "You left me no choice!"

"I did not know!" she growled through gritted teeth, "I had no idea I was the vessel. I had no idea there was even such a spell. Yes, I wanted to kill Uther, but who didn't? Tell me if the thought of killing him never crossed your mind? Tell me if you never thought that his death would be better for Camelot than his life? Better for people like us?"

She saw the hint of uncertainty in his eyes, the denial that did not come quickly enough and that made her smile bitterly. How she had trusted him with her secret, how she had thought him her only friend. Oh what a fool she had been.

He admitted a second later.

"Yes, maybe sometimes I thought that way but I knew that the repercussions of such loss for Arthur won't be good. I never went ahead with any of those ideas," his voice lowered with the confession.

"Well, I did, because unlike you my world consisted of many other precious lives than just that of Arthur's. I had had enough. I had been in Camelot for far more years than you, I had watched too many people killed because of their magic. More than you can imagine. With no exception of women or children. Uther killed my friend's father - when she was still my friend - in cold blood. You may let it go easily, I couldn't. I wanted to rid Camelot from his tyranny and I succeeded in doing so even if much later. No repercussions arose, Merlin, except it made Arthur grow sooner rather than later. Otherwise we might be having another ten years of Uther's blind hatred and bloodshed."

"But you never wanted Arthur to rule the Camelot, did you?" he shot back, "You wanted to catch him unprepared for that duty. You wanted to get Camelot for yourself," he said harshly, his eyes blazing with the hatred she had no idea he was capable of.

"Yes, I did. Of course I wanted Camelot," she lifted her face defiantly; "It was the place I had watched thousands of my kind slaughtered just to satisfy Uther's hatred for magic. Magic that he once used to have a heir and did not like the consequences. I spent years fearing for my life in its walls. For my sake and for the sake of all those innocent people, I had to bring Camelot back to its days of magic. Especially after I found out I had a legal claim to the throne. I could not stop then."

"You had no claim," he hissed exasperatedly, "No one, except very few, knew about your real father. Camelot and its people would never have accepted you."

"I don't care about their acceptance," she said, stepping forward angrily and saying through gritted teeth, "They had accepted a king like Uther. They should not have any problem with me. I was not planning to kill innocents to get rid of my fears. I was not hunting down people to lay waste to their families and friends. Having magic myself, I had not driven all without it out of my kingdom," she smirked, an unamused sarcasm filtering her smile, "If they could accept Uther, they would have accepted me."

"You were not the ruler Camelot wanted," he said quietly, his eyes bloodshot with anger and disbelief, "You were not wanted there after what you did to its people."

"It was my home," she whispered fiercely, "My father's kingdom."

"The father you killed!"

"The father who disowned me and had everything coming that happened to him," she retorted heatedly, "But Camelot was still my home and I didn't need anyone wanting me to go there."

"So you attacked your home? Killed people who lived there?" there was so much poison in his words, she felt like choking on it like she once did thousands of years ago.

"The people who would have gladly watched me thrown to a pyre for my magic?" she asked in a quiet voice, "The people who were as blind with fear as my father? Only if they come in my way."

"You are heartless!" he shook his head.

"I was at war! And wars know no mercy!"

"At war with your own father and brother?"

"At war with people who feared me and my kind and hunted us like animals for their hides! Who burned people like me and celebrated the day we mourned!"

And on and on it went until there was nothing but anger and betrayal left between them, until any and every connection got severed with the fire of hatred raging their blood through their veins. No longer were they hoping to relieve the other of pain, no longer were they concerned if the memories hurt the other because the hearts had reversed. The dream morphed into the nightmare. If there was one person who could hurt the other in the worst possible way, to cause the soul-crushing excruciating pain of guilt, it was them. And right then, they did not hold back a single fire.

It took two years for them to run into each other, exchange names, have half memories and unfinished dreams of each other, to come to the point where every minute without the other was like living a life of a ghost; empty and haunting, to the bitter sweetness of half formed expectations where touches and smiles were starting to morph their meaning into something more and it took only few minutes to bring all of it down.

And none of them was sorry.

No, all they felt was resentment and anger, all they felt was the need to play victim, to provide excuses and place blames, all they cared about was solving the mystery of who wronged whom the most, who betrayed and stabbed in the back the most, how the other could have changed the past, how the other could have sided with them and all the hows and whos that were already arrows on a target of their lives, too long ago strung in the bow of time and let loosened.

So they yelled and argued, fiercely sticking to their ideals, pointed fingers, heated tones, accusing eyes, until all the hatred of centuries old events bled into their words and twisted their souls, taking away every remnant of the two wide eyed strangers who ran into each other on their first day of college.

x-x-x

Wet black street, glistening darkly in the streetlights, stretches infinitely in front of his eyes. He peers at it through the water sliding down the windscreen, molten silver droplets quickening their pace as they go down to gather at the base. Rain pounds loudly on the roof of his car, the loud splattering that of falling pebbles filling the silent spaces. He let it fill his mind, let himself be consumed by his senses so that the shiny black street, wildly waving wipers and the sound of rain is all that remain in his numb mind. Because that is all he has been reduced to in the last few years. Empty. Numb. Silent.

Pulling in front of a restaurant, sighing at the sight of lit windows and the promise of warmth, he comes out of the car. The few steps to the restaurant door stretch longer by the heavy rain as he tries in vain to reach it before getting wet. It is a futile attempt. Pushing his wet hair back from his forehead and putting his weight on the heavy glass door, he enters the restaurant a few steps too quick. He takes off his soaked raincoat and folds it on the crook of his arm, glancing around the room briefly. His eyes zeroes on the table by the window, half hidden in the shadows of wall and with most of the nearby tables empty.

Good.

With long strides, he reaches it, folding his wet coat on the back of adjacent chair and sitting down hesitantly, his fingers briefly touching the fake flower in the small vase. He stares at the table for few empty moments before picking up the menu.

His eyes scan the card, going through all the different soups available, unable to make a decision.

"Are you ready to order, sir?" the waiter's voice, who came to stand behind him quietly, makes him jump slightly.

"Ah - yeah, um, I think I will go with soup du jour," he makes spur of the moment decision, closing the menu with a snap. Soup du jour that day is Scotch broth and feels like as safe a choice as any.

He taps his fingers on the wooden table, waiting for his order to arrive. His gaze falls on the table beside his. Two girls are sitting on it; their heads bend together in a deep conversation. The one sitting to the right seems older than the one in front of him.

"You have to tell Mom," the older one is insisting urgently.

"Are you crazy?" the younger one hisses, pushing her blond hair behind her ear, "She will kill me!"

"You have to tell her some time!" the older one reasons, smiling slightly.

He glances down at the menu cover, something weighing down on his mind. He tries to dismiss it.

"I know, I know. But I am going to take my sweet time doing that," the younger one says cheekily, leaning back in her chair, a mischievous smirk on her face.

The older one laughs loudly, "One of these days, you will get in some serious trouble with Mum."

You killed my sister!

His hand, fingering the menu delicately, falls limply on the table.

"Here is your order, sir," the crisp voice makes him take a startled breath, breaking through his trance. He nods silently, his breath slowing down again. The waiter left with a polite smile.

He takes a sip, enjoying the warmth flowing from his mouth and down his throat, his fingers tingling slightly as he places them against the hot bowl, warmth flushing the cold out of tips.

"Listen, you are not telling Mom anything. I will tell her when the time is right," the voice of the younger girl makes him look up again. She seems worried.

"Fine, I won't," the older girl sounds wiser than her years, "But you need to tell her sooner rather than later."

You killed the only family I had!

He closes his eyes, the spoon dropping from his hand to splash loudly in the soup. It keeps coming back. It always comes back.

"Your sister was taking what was not hers," he had given the reason, on that glowing night of crystals and memories.

"She was doing it for me!" she screamed in frustration, "She was doing all of it for me! I was Uther's daughter! I had every right to the throne!"

Circles. They had run in so many circles that night. Same reasons, same arguments coming from every different direction.

"And you killed her! You killed one person who loved me! Who accepted me for who I was! Who told me what it was like to not to fear my powers," tears were streaming down her eyes, so much darker with pain than ever before. He had thought once, a long time ago, that he did not want to see tears in her eyes, that he would do anything to make sure she never has another reason to cry. But standing there, staring at her wet face, he hardly felt anything above the slab of disbelief and horror weighing his heart down.

"She was not the only one who loved you," he said heatedly, "Your father loved you. And you killed him. Your brother loved you. And you got him killed, too. She was not your only family."

"She was the only one that mattered!" she growled, her throat dry with sobs, "Not the father who never acknowledged my place in the family. Not the brother who walked blindly in his father's steps and never accepted people like me."

"Arthur was a better king than Uther!" he said sharply.

"Not for those with magic," she countered, "Not for people like you and me."

"I am nothing like you!" his fierce denial silenced her for a moment, making her take a step back in disbelief. He saw a glint in her eyes, something shifting. He felt the silent snap of something else breaking - the entirety of their connection in this life. All that time that existed because they were so same, so uniquely different from everyone else and so similar in their burdens. That was the only thing he regretted saying that night. And then not for too long. He observed how her eyes went blank the very next moment to be replaced by a steely shine. Morgana Pendragon. He no longer wondered at the mystery of her cold eyes in the past, so devoid of warmth once she chose the wrong side. He just stood there, observing how it happened once more in this lifetime.

"You are right," she smiled slightly, starting with an uncertain, shaky tilt of lips to become a well known smirk, "You are nothing like me. I am nothing like you. I am not a coward to hide behind some destiny whenever I poison a friend or try to get a child killed."

He shook his head slightly, abashed, "How did you -?"

"What - you thought Mordred would not tell me how you almost did not come to his help? How you tripped him so that the soldiers could kill him?" her smirk grew, "I was frankly surprised why he helped you in escaping from the slave traders. But I guess he had a better conscience than you. A better sense of debt and loyalty," he stared at her, her eyes raging with the thunder of her voice, "Because even after all he did for you and Arthur, he told me how you never trusted him. How you always feared him."

He fists his hands in his hair, trying to blot out the memories. It has never worked. Not before. Not this time.

"I never trusted him because the prophecy said that he will kill Arthur," he said quickly, guilt churning in his stomach at the thought of letting a child die so easily. It was something he could never find a good excuse for. Maybe there was not one.

"Yes, I know that wretched prophecy, the damned destiny that eventually made you look like a fool," she was gloating now, he never thought she was capable of it, such impassive coldness in her voice that the surrounding crystals seemed softer in contrast, "But so much of that prophecy came to be true only because you misunderstood it, Merlin. So much of it came to be true because of your own choices. Mordred never would have joined me if you had let him escape with Kara. He had no intention of returning to me. But you were blinded with the words, not caring for the lives. To you everyone was a puppet to be placed in a prophecy and played out like a marionette. You thought it was up to you to decide which life mattered and which did not. You thought yours was the only destiny that mattered and you set aside your humanity to achieve it."

He throws his head in his hands, unable to shut the voices. His head throbs behind his eyes painfully and he squeezes them shut.

"I did what I did for the greater good. For Albion," the reason he had used so many times in the past life seemed like an overused dialogue, gaining contempt from her.

"So did I," she shrugged impassively; "I did all I did for the greater good of my people. Does that justify it?"

"None of the people with magic ever wanted you to do what you did. Not the druids. Mordred left you for Arthur. Not the Catha. Alator never told you about the true identity of Emrys. They all believed in the destiny I had to make possible. Who were you fighting for?"

Her eyes blazed hard in the luminescence of the crystals, the blue turning electric with the blue of the rocks, a ghostly brightness making her face look paler. She looked like a being from some other world; beautiful, hostile, dangerous.

"None of them had any idea of your cowardice. None of them were ever poisoned by your hand. None of them had known you like I did. Strengthening the hand of a tyrant with the magic he feared - you are a hypocrite, Merlin. The great Emrys, with thousands of people's hopes of salvation on his shoulder and he chose to polish the shoes of the king he would not dare tell the truth to."

He opens his eyes and pushes the soup away, the thick, warm taste suddenly going tasteless in his mouth. Because he knows she was telling the truth. Just like he knew that night. He had lived an empty life of lies in his past, fearing his death at the hand of his friend if he ever found out the reality. But only in this life did he have to explain himself. To her, of all people. Whose twisted soul still breathed the poison he tricked her into drinking.

He rubs his eyes tiredly, trying to gain the same emptiness back that has been his relief. He fails. There is no escape from memories.

"You are the one to call me hypocrite when you are no better," he decided to turn the tables around, made her accountable, "You appeared to be the savior of those with magic yet you killed so many of them when they failed to aid you in your own search for Emrys. Their blood is on your hands, Morgana. How can you forget that?"

"So you find it repulsive that I killed those with magic, do you?" she asked, sarcastic bitterness polluting her words.

"Morgana -"

"Where was your conscience all that time - Emrys -"

"My name is Merlin!"

"- when Uther got Tom killed? Or when he killed the druid man who came with Mordred? Or the witch's son?" she stepped closer, her eyes narrowed, "What did you do when you found Freya being held in a cage to be burned at stake for magic and later killed by your master? How many skins of poison you passed to Uther? How many times you drove the sword through him? Like you did with me."

He stared at her, unblinking.

"After all, you were the great salvation everyone had been looking for. You must have at least tried to get rid the land of Uther. At least once. For all the times you tried to kill me for killing innocents," the poison of her words and tone, the sarcastic tilt of her smirk, it left him breathless.

"That was not my destiny. I had to keep Arthur -"

"Oh right!" she cut in loudly, her voice dangerously cold and distant, "The destiny, of course. You cry the tears of morality at my deeds, Emrys -"

"I am Merlin."

"You are Emrys. Because that was what you chose to be. A slave of some prophecy. And you never took the loss of human life seriously as long as it allowed you to fulfill your destiny," she let out a dry, humorless chuckle, "You are right. You are nothing like me. You are a coward. You have always been scared of getting your own hands dirty. I, however, did what I had to do. I killed people, yes, but at least I don't reason it with a destiny. You dared to temper with fate, Emrys, you dared to play God!"

It becomes hard for him to breath. He passes a hand down his face - and it comes wet.

"You killed people to find Emrys because you were told he was your doom!" he shouted finally, his desperation exploding. Standing there, in that illuminated cave, he had hated her for her reasons, for her words twisting knives in his soul, knowing she was right and yet unable to stop defending his actions.

"He was an ally of my enemy. And anything is fair in war," she said matter-of- factly.

"You!" he roared in frustration, stepping forward to come within inches of her, "You killed people in your fear of Emrys! You are just like Uther! You, Morgana, were your father's daughter, through and through!" he said harshly, looking down at her in furious desperation.

And that was all it took - that last accusation. A twin golden glow and he was knocked off his feet to slam against the wall behind him, leaving him breathless and his body jarred violently as if hit by a heavy fist to stomach. He let out an unconscious grunt as his body dropped down to the rocky floor, temporarily senseless and with no knowledge of down from above. It took few seconds for him to realize what had happened and sitting up from the slump he was reduced to, he turned wide, astonished eyes towards her. She, too, was just standing there, her own eyes wide at the accident, her hands clenched into fists. It was the only moment ever since their wakening from the memories that was not filled with anger and hatred but with pure, undiluted surprise and he found himself hoping foolishly for it to stretch infinitely. Before long, however, her face resumed to her former rage as she must have remembered what triggered her violent response. He saw the flare the spark of hatred took in her eyes, saw the disgust she felt for him, before she stepped aside and just like two years ago, when they collided in an empty corridor, walked out with hurried steps.

He feels something heavy in his throat, struggling to swallow. He hates her. He hates what she became in that last life. He hates how the memories twisted her in this one, too. He hates feeling that emptiness, that dark void in the pit of his stomach where his whole life vanished two years ago, rendered meaningless and frail. And he hates knowing that it is there because of her.

He stands up, no longer feeling hungry or cold, snatches up his coat, and sliding soggy folded currency notes under the bowl, leaves the restaurant.

x-x-x

The glass wall glitters with distant lights of the night; the heavy curtains pulled all the way aside and gathered together in satin plaits. She likes it this way; open and clear and vast beyond the walls. It helps her cope with the nightmares of a dark well and the walls that always seem to be coming closer around her huddled form.

She looks up from the aisle in front of her, a pencil still poised in her slim fingers, to look across the wall. It takes some time for her eyes to adjust to the darkness outside after the brightness of her room. Her eyes went up to the sky. Getting distracted, she stands up from the tall wooden stool and approach the transparent wall, her fingers reaching out to glide smoothly against the glass panel. It is something else she loves about the view. The wide sky. And if she stares out on a clear night like this one, she could see the stars and silver dust sprinkled across the darkness like a careless tilt of a glitter jar; unevenly distributed in blank voids. And her eyes always finds one particular set of stars, a random distribution possibly part of several different constellations but to her, they speak of a night many, many months ago.

They had been roaming the grounds, as usual, on a summer night with slight chill in the air. The sky was clear even though it had rained heavily only a day ago. They walked up to the hills behind the college, the only place where the grass had dried completely because of the altitude. He sat down on the grass, leaning back on his palms as she stood with her back to him, staring down the hill at the dark huddled form of the college building and the grounds beyond. Just like every other time, there were several thought weighing on her mind, pulling her in the dark valleys of mystery and unknown grief.

"There's no moon tonight," his casual observation made her turn around, an involuntarily faint smile already forming on her lips. She followed his gaze to the sky and found out he was right.

She kept staring, suddenly captivated by the image. At that height, with nothing to block the view for miles and miles, the sky seemed to have come down, just above her head, teasing her with all its twinkling little trinkets. It was all around her, a deep blue field of silver fireflies.

She heard his happy sigh as he leaned all the way to lie on his back, his fingers crossed under his head. She smiled fully.

She lay down beside him, pulling her hair above her to fan out. The dark blue of sky stretched all around them; a forever horizon in all directions, dusted with stars. She stared at them intently, looking billions of years in past of the Universe.

"Do you know about the Inflation theory?" his question surprised her. She turned her head to look at him incredulously.

"I thought you were interested in history."

He shrugged, "Well, inflation theory tells about history, alright. History of the Universe."

She chuckled, "What does it say?"

He took a deep breath, "It says that our Universe is not the only one to come from the explosion."

"The Big Bang?"

"Yeah," he nodded, "Anyway. So it says that our Universe is not the only one out there. That there are more universes being born every minute and all of them are moving away from each other. They are all a part of a much greater entity, a mother Universe that is forever expanding."

She felt an odd sensation of hearing a fairy tale under starry sky. She imagined a sky expanding with a blast, while a little ball of it dropped down from it.

"And it's still expanding?"

"Presumably, yes."

"So by now there are thousands of universes, far from each other," her voice dropped to a whisper.

He turned to look at her, "It also says that it might all went out with the speed of light. The whole expansion would rebound. We would not know and we will be gone."

"Kaboossshhhh. . . " she whispered.

They both stayed silent for a long time after that, imagining multiple universes popping out of space and rocketing away, a thousand big bangs, a million worlds, while in a speck of a solar system, on a lonely habitable planet's tiny corner, two humans tried to understand it all. It made her dizzy.

"Do you know the constellations are all completely randomly shaped?" she spoke up suddenly.

He looked at her in confusion.

"I mean, there is no fish, no woman, no goat in the sky. In all those shapes, the stars included are so completely randomly placed that it could be anything," she pointed up in the sky, making a small circle, "Here, I will give you a new constellation today. See those three bright stars?"

He followed the line of her sight looked at the sky to see completely random three stars.

"Yeah?"

"I can make your face out of them," she pointed a bit lower, "This one could be the tip of your eyelash," she moved her finger slightly, "This one is the edge of your forehead," she tipped her finger slightly higher, "And this one is the top of your head. We can imagine your rest of the face under it. There, all new Merlin constellation. My Christmas gift to you."

He laughed loudly, "Why the star of my forehead is so far from the star of my head?"

"That's because it's you in the morning," she shrugged nonchalantly, "Have you seen your hair in the morning? Twelve inches above your head, all your hair wild. Even more so than usual."

"You're hilarious." he said drily.

"Oh, I am," she gave him an innocent smile. He elbowed her playfully.

"Hmm," he scanned the sky for another distinguishable set of stars, "I must give you a gift now, too. An equally . . . cosmic one."

"Uh-oh," she whispered dramatically, "Sounds more like revenge."

He chuckled softly, "Mmm, see those four stars?" he pointed out, "Well, these are top and bottom of your left eye, and these ones are top and bottom of your right eye. We can imagine your rest of the face around it. And all the other stars can be your hair."

She failed to feel offense and simply laughed.

"Ooh, I'm enormous!" she whistled, "At least a thousand billion light years across."

"That's Morgana constellation for you," he said cheerfully, "Merry Christmas."

She gave a tickled laugh, swinging and knocking her knees together, then she sighed, "We are a couple of lunatics, wishing Christmas in August."

"Yup."

The knock on the door is hesitant and low enough to require a certain insistence before getting her attention. She starts slightly, forcing herself back to the present and after a small pause, goes to the door.

The person standing on the other side takes her by surprise. Her mouth opens slightly, eyes showing carefully hidden surprise.

"Hi," it's her brother.

At the door of her bedroom.

It is not even that long ago when she last met him. Maybe merely a month and a half ago. What surprises her, however, is the fact that he is at her doorstep and not in his own world of some unknown friends and a distant job.

"Um, hi," she chokes out after gulping heavily, "What - how - um, so you are back, huh?"

Her brother has gotten a great job in another nearby city which frequents his visits but not so much his actual presence.

"For weekend, yes," he nods solemnly, his hands stuffed in pockets, looking as lost as she feels. She responds to his answer with her own blank nod.

He glances inside her room then looks at her, "Are you . . . busy? Something with the -?" he trails off awkwardly.

She shakes her head quickly, "Oh, no, not really," she glances behind herself at the room then back at him, "You - want to come inside?"

"Sure," he gives a surprised smile. It is probably only the fourth or fifth time that her brother has come in her room in his twenty eight years of life. Definitely the first time after he went for college.

He sits down on the couch beside the glass wall and she takes the bed. There is a moment of awkward silence.

Finally, she could not take it any longer.

"Not that it's not a nice surprise," she begins awkwardly but realizes that it's not the truth and decides to veer the subject, "But I really want to know to what do I owe the pleasure of your presence in my room?"

Her brother stares at her for few moments, looking definitely abashed, before shrugging slightly, "I just - well, it's just - Morgana, we never really found out what happened at the college two years ago that changed your mind about completing your Masters degree and -"

"Nothing happened," she says, suddenly going stiff and distant, "I decided to give it a break after Bachelors."

He stares at her quietly for few seconds, "You were not . . . exactly fine when you came back, you know."

She knows that. And she also knows that the one vacation she decided not to go back home for was the one her brother decided to visit home. It irritates her to no bounds. Added to the fact that on the day after New Year, when she arrived on the door step with all her possessions, leaving behind an empty dorm room, she was not exactly expecting all three of her family members sitting around in the living room. They all had looked up at her in surprise then, taking in her white face, snow covered coat and red shot, swollen eyes. All the excuses she had decided to give to her parents went flying out of her mind and she stood there; frozen and devastated and still as a statue with the shock of the sight in front of her. She had expected an empty house where she would simply go to her room and would only have to give explanation unless someone comes knocking on her door. Not the small happy reunion she was observing then.

It pains her inexplicably that the one time she needed to come to an empty house, it was otherwise.

Her brother and mother had stood up, mouths slightly open as they took in her ashen face.

"Hi, Morgana," her mother began awkwardly, casting a worried glance at her father, "It's good to have you for vacations, dear. And your brother made it, too, this year."

Oh the joy, she remembers thinking acidly back then.

Without a word then, she had dropped any bags she was holding that might slow her pace, and went straight to her room. And that evening, when she finally came down to the living room, she had her calm mask on. She explained how she had decided to give it a break and find a job to test her abilities before going for Masters. Of course, nobody had swallowed that lie, not after seeing her entrance earlier that day. But just like it was the routine, they nodded and smiled and ignored whatever would take a bit longer for them to care about each other.

And now her brother throwing that in her face is not something she thought would ever happen. It has always been "live and let live" ideology in that place. Something she has been counting on these days, instead of resenting it.

She opens her mouth to argue the point but her brother beats her to it.

"You know I never like to interfere," he murmurs in a low voice, his eyes down on his entwined fingers, "But something happened that forced me to . . ." he looks up at her, his eyes suddenly inquisitive, "How long have you been sleepwalking, Morgana?"

"I don't sleepwalk," the response was a knee-jerk denial, honest and spills out like some automated reply. Her eyes become slightly wide as she realizes what he is saying.

"Wait - did I -?"

He purses his lips, his eyes judging her words for the truth. Then he sighs, lowering his gaze.

"Last night, when I arrived, you were probably already in your room. And later that night, I was in the living room, going through some of my mails and stuff," he passes a nervous hand down his face, "Around two or three in the morning, I thought I heard some noise. My first guess was a servant but they never stay around for so long. So I thought it could be an intruder. I was about to check it myself but then I saw you."

She stares at him, a slight fear of discovery shimmering in her eyes.

"You were coming down the stairs. And your eyes were open so I thought you were awake. I asked you what you were doing so late at night," he stops for a moment, the pause getting heavier by the second and then he looks up at her, his eyes hinting at his confusion, "You said something about a boy. Mordred."

She inhales sharply, a sudden drop of her stomach making her gulp. She remembers her dream from last night.

"You said something about saving a child. And you said something about a king and the law. You said the king will execute the boy."

Her dream from last night was one of her memories. One she has dreamt so many times.

"That's when I realized you were sleepwalking. I know that you should not wake someone when they are sleep walking. So I followed you and you went for the main doors. I followed you out on the porch but I had to stop you when you tried to unlock the outer gate."

She struggles for breath. It comes surprisingly hard for the years of practice her lungs has.

"So once again I asked you why you are going outside. And you said something about . . . I think the name was Merlin."

The reaction to that name is instantaneous. She drops her gaze guiltily, her hands coming up nervously to push her hair behind her ears. She bites her lower lip, her breath now too eager and fast, her heart loud and echoing in her ears.

She knows that her brother has noticed all of it and it reddens her face.

He clears his throat awkwardly, "So, um, you said that this guy - Merlin - he will find a way to save the child. And that you need to talk to him."

It is getting harder for her to control her expressions. She just nods.

"The thing is, I think you were having some weird nightmare. Execution. King. Have you been watching some movies or reading books with that stuff? Because it's messing with your head, Morgana. Especially if you are not having enough sleep."

It cuts a bit too deep, the sincere concern of her brother's eyes. Because she could not, not ever, tell him about her dreams and more than one lives and the memories that haunt her waking hours. She cannot tell anyone.

Well, not anyone.

There is someone - and only one - who can share her burden. The one who hates her and cannot bear to look at her. The one who is her murderer, who killed her twice in one lifetime. Unsuccessfully first, and got luckier the next time.

She feels it, the ghost of the broad blade of sword being driven in her stomach with brute force. He really meant it. He really wanted her to die, to see the life draining out of her eyes, to watch over the lifeless form of her. The boy who poisoned her. And left her to be killed at the hand of a dead knight. And finally drove a sword through her, once and truly, to finish what he had begun.

Leaving her to stare at him in agonizing disbelief, feeling the wetness as her hands got soaked in her own blood.

A low sob, involuntary and without consent, escapes her lips. Something wet at the corner of her eye.

"Are you alright? You seem quiet," her brother leans forward hesitantly, looking alarmed.

She wipes away her eye quickly, "I'm fine." She gives a small smile, "And you are right. It must be the lack of sleep."

He nods, not entirely convinced, "Because this could be dangerous. I mean, you may not even know how many times you have already gone out of the house without knowing. It's a great risk."

"Yes, I understand," she nods quickly, "I will make sure to lock the door of my room at night. And have some sleeping pills."

He nods, too, his expression grave and thoughtful, "And if you feel like you need help, there are always doctors who can help you with any problems. You just need to find time between your internship and the assignments."

She smiles politely, barely able to stop her chuckle. She imagines a doctor's room, a chair tilted back and her lying on it. And she imagines telling all about her life. Or lives. The memories and nightmares and reincarnation and the boy whose blue eyes follow her in the darkness of dreams.

And the magic. The magic that returned to her fingers. The cave had worked like a key to both her memories and magic.

If the doctor sends her straight to the asylum, it would not be a surprise.

"Of course, I will see if I need any help," she says calmly.

He nods again, smiling faintly, "Alright then, I hope you will tell me if you need anything," the offer is a fairly generous one, not something she is too keen to use but still, her appreciation of it shows in her face.

"Yes, thank you," she says formally, not knowing what else to say. He smiles and walks towards the door. She follows.

At the exit, he suddenly turns around, "You said something else about that guy - uh, Merlin," her breath catches in her throat, "Something about -" he stops suddenly as if remembering the whole thing now and finding it awkward. He shakes his head slightly, "You know what, it was nothing." And a hint of the faintest blush appears on his face.

Which is even worse because now she is left with several thousand ways to make her brother feel awkward to say something she had said about a boy who is always there, in the back of her every thought. It is unbearable - the way she misses him. And too offensive considering all he did to her in their past. A blow to her ego. She knows she should hate him with all her being, with every breath. But there it is, sometimes too invisible, sometimes staring right in her face. An intense, physical craving, like air underwater and as much as it scares her, at times she would stop short in confusion. Their relationship - friendship, classmates, whatever weird mixture of something else - had never been physical. There were times when he would hold her hands to calm her down, or to simply lead the way, maybe those odd, abrupt cheek kisses tinged with embarrassment and even though she did feel that spark of touch and the way their aura combine, she had never thought their relationship as physical. It had always been strengthened by their shared memories of past lives - and yes, broken by them too - an internal, cognitive connection, so far above rationality, so far away from their conscious control, running deep beneath flesh and bones, a string from soul to soul. Like kids using cups to talk to each other. And she wonders if at some point, unbeknownst to them, something changed between them, the static of touch had gotten too high and rearrange their view of each other, the string feeling suddenly different. Or maybe if she is feeling that way because he is no longer a part of her life and if ever, at any moment in her life, they cross paths again, the connection will be back to the same feeling of reveling in the simple knowledge of each other.

But she does not say anything as his brother goes down the stairs. Instead, she closes the door and opens her palm, taking some small pleasure in the hovering flame flickering in the light.

x-x-x

The low sizzle of a whisper tears through the fabric of silence, taking his blank gaze up with it until it explodes into a shower of lightening dots.

He has always loved fireworks display. So bright, so short lived yet so loud. Shouting their existence for all the world with all their light and noise and just when they become noticeable, they die out.

Something he can relate to.

His time with her in this lifetime is the one that resembles with the evanescence of the fireworks. It had started with that same electric sizzle. Full of anticipation, expectation, a static of charged space between them at each moment. Words quiet and so few. Reading the unspoken off each other's faces. Speaking with untold sentences.

And then it became a shower of lights. She started to laugh and tease. Long hours of walking quietly yet saying so little. She trusted as if he was her only connection. Which he was. Her connection to the life before. As she was his.

It went only louder and brighter when she had the dream of him poisoning her. Secrets vanished, truths were told. Nothing remained to be removed between them. And then it was at its loudest, the urge to name whatever it was between them. He strained on daily basis to define their link. Friends, partners, kin. Nothing felt enough. He would stare at her in quiet moments of thoughtfulness, wondering if she goes through the same struggle of defining their boundaries.

And then it vaporized. Every single bit of it. Sucked into the whirlpool of memories. Gone. With not a hint of it remaining except the echo of its loudness - which, he fears, would never really go anywhere.

It was the way he had felt when he was with her - a vast awareness, his senses heightened and peaking and spreading all over around them; a rustle of an autumn leaf, the lone cold draft of wind among the warm breeze, the shadows crawling over the grounds as a cloud eclipses the sun - a tingling of entirety; like universe exploding under his skin, every breath deeper and warmer, every shade sharper and brighter. Just the mere sight of her, or sometimes even the sensation of her presence somewhere out of sight but close enough, was able to roll out and increase the canvas of his mind to include the fainter details he had been missing before.

And now, with her no longer in sight or sensation, everything has fallen down in his mind like rocks or pebbles. It feels as if gravity had increased its hold on his mind. He finds himself painfully insulated from the physical sensations of little things. It is like he was no longer a human but a shadow of one, eternally damned to appear as one grey misshapen smudge with no face or feelings, a two dimensional abomination that has lost the physical figure that made him so, got detached from the core of his existence.

He wonders, now, of the what if. What if he had not gone to that valley, what if she had given up on the idea, what if they had found the lake first. What if he had never came back early from his vacations.

And immediately, his mind would be filled with the images of an alternate reality. Of him and her, walking, sitting, lying on the grass. Talking, silent, laughing. And he hopes. Just maybe, the touches and kisses would grow bold, the hint of something between them making itself clearer.

And that's when he stops.

With guilt and self loathing. How can he think this way about her, knowing what she did in past life? How can he accept her with all the pain and death she caused? Somewhere inside her is a monster that got unleashed in their past lives and turned her into its color. The color of ruthless, cold being with a heart that beats to cause pain. How can he know she will not turn into one this time, too? How can he ever forgive her for what she did?

And despite all that, overshadowed by his guilt and shame, there is still the image of that what if at the back of his every thought. A silent regret. A dream of a better life. The promise of the absence of this hollow pit in his stomach. And it frustrates him to no end. That he want that. With her.

He is fairly certain there is nothing left on her part; no half regrets, no false hopes. Once, several months ago, when he was still struggling with the memories and the lack of her immediate presence beside him, he had driven all the way to her city, without any slightest hint of reason. He had spent all his day driving, not knowing what he was looking for, up and down and around the streets. Fate had mocked him further and when he stopped on the side of a lonely street for a brief rest at the end of the day, he had seen her coming out of the building on the other side of the road. The sun had all but vanished from the sight, its pale orange tendrils illuminating the top of the building only. And in the dim brightness he saw her tall frame turning around to look at the road. Her eyes passed over his car easily, not noticing him. If the sight had shocked him, he was too numb to feel. If it twisted his insides into a painful mess of betrayal, he was too absent to notice. He watched silently as she ran down the stairs to stand on the road, wrapped up in a cap and a crimson coat, her hands dug deep in the pockets. He knew they were gloved. Just like he knew she was crying for some reason. Even though he could hardly see her face for it was bent so low.

Someone ran down the stairs of the building behind her, calling out her name. A flare of unease tried to rip past his numbness at the sight. A stranger with her name on his lips. He had felt his mouth going dry. But still not a flicker of feeling in the cold abyss of his heart.

She didn't turn around. Instead, she passed a quick hand down her face. And yes, her hand was gloved. It didn't surprise him to be right.

The man came to stand in front of her, talking quietly. His manner suggested apology. Hunched shoulders, guilty eyes. She shook her head, the whispers of her voice drifting over to him with the wind, incoherent and meaningless. He did not mind her tears. He did not mind her grief. It did nothing to his heart. He could very well be as soul-less and heartless as the street lamp she was standing under; a silent, unaffected observer of her misery.

She twisted away from the man, still shaking her head, staring down the road. Her gloved hand rubbed her shoulder vigorously. She wanted to leave. A cab shone its lights down the road and she put up her arm. The man said something else, more earnest now. She gave a small nod, and even from his car he knew it was a dismissive one. She didn't mean a word of whatever she said afterwards. She just wanted to escape.

The cab came to a halt in front of them, the man's parting words only half-finished before she slammed the door shut. The sight gave him a mean satisfaction. His gaze remained fixed on her as she settled back firmly against the seat. In the yellow, dim light of the cab, he saw her pressed lips as another tear rolled down her face.

And then she was gone.

Leaving him to realize that whatever new life she had engulfed herself in was already testing her enough to forget all about her previous ones. And it angered him enough to go into a state of restlessness where no place, no sight was enough for him. Always driving, always on the run, from her, from himself, from any permanency in his life, anything that could define him. For the first time in his life, he started smoking.

The low buzz of vibration brings him out of his thoughts. Blowing out the smoke, he glances down at the passenger seat to find his mobile screen glowing in the dark. He stares at it detachedly for a moment before reaching forward to pick it up. His mother is calling. He closes his eyes briefly in exasperation.

"Merlin, where are you?" the panicked tone does nothing to awake any sort of guilt on his part. Instead, he stares around, trying to remember where he has driven off to this time. He could not recognize his surroundings.

"I don't -" it is only going to make matters worse so he improvises, "Not much far away. What is it?"

"You have not come home for two days now!" his mother sounds hysterical, "Where have you been all this time? I have been calling you all day."

It must be the truth. His own measurement of time has gone a bit rusty these days. She must have called too, but he has no idea. He could have answered sooner if not for his tendency to either forget the cell phone at home or switch it off whenever driving away on an erratic course. In this case, he forgot to switch it off again after he switched it on an hour ago to search for lighter under its glow.

"Just driving around," he replies off handedly, "Everything is fine."

"Don't - just please come home," his mother sounds pleading, awakening another image of his mother from another lifetime, "I am getting worried about you. This is not like you, Merlin."

Gentle, loving fingers holding his face, kind eyes with the affection of all the world pooling in just for him. He closes his eyes again.

"What is not like me?" he murmurs hoarsely.

"To run away. To avoid matters."

"What matters, mother?" he opens his eyes, confusion settling around irises.

"The matters of what happened at the college two years ago," the accusation stings and he sits up erect.

"Nothing happened at the college," he bristles, "I have told you. I lost interest."

"Merlin, I am your mother," his mother argues patiently, "I have seen you grow up from the tiny little bundle in my arms. I know if something is troubling you. And when you came back two years ago, you were not quite your usual self."

He sighs, "People change. I am not a little boy anymore."

"No you are not," he could just make out a little sigh on her end, "But I have never seen you so devastated as when you left the college," he stares across the windshield, still and speechless, "Something happened there and it was not just you losing interest."

He wonders if everyone can see through him that easily.

"Sweetheart, you can't run away from things. Not forever."

But you can try.

"I will be home by tomorrow," he mutters quietly and switches off his phone. No reminder is needed to make his failures feel real. Not when they have started to scream inside him lately.

x-x-x

A/N: Took me long enough to just get out half of it, didn't it? Reason?

It was hard steering the story and arguments from the last place the story went. I had to stay true to the original trailer that was the inspiration for this story but had to present arguments of both sides too. A lot of the scenes; few examples being the entry of Morgana's brother and Merlin looking at her from his car are put for the sake of trailer only. But once I put them there, they seemed to go well with the rest of the idea so I polished them with my own priorities.

Keeping memories and present situation running parallel is hard as heck. I had to italicize every dialogue and scenario of past right in the middle of the present situation, as well as create triggers to the cave scene. Not an easy job. Way too much rewriting.

Lack of reviews. Yeah that one is all on you guys. It really saddens me to see so few reviews for the amount of work that goes into it. One of the reasons I stopped working on it entirely for quite a few months and basically giving up on the story, was you guys not realizing the importance of reviews for an author. And the reason of why I'm back on it is also you guys. The last few reviews insisted on an update and just knowing that someone is enjoying the story enough to care about its completion had me get back on it.

I got married. Today, the day I'm releasing this chapter, is first wedding anniversary. It's been a stressful year with a gazillion changes and compromises and I hope to receive some good reviews to keep me happy for a few days.