Chapter Text
It all started with a negotiation in a sheep pasture, of all places, between a crown prince and a six-months-widowed peasant. He couldn't marry the woman he wanted, yet, and Nora needed a new home, now that her parents were dead as well, and she couldn't stomach marrying any of the men of her own village. They surprised each other by managing to get along personally, which was a bonus.
The negotiations had been short. She'd leave when he married or when he tired of her. He'd provide her with a simple living, afterward, and wouldn't enter her life again.
And they would not love each other. Not ever.
She heard quite a bit about Gwen- from him, from Merlin, from seeing Gwen around occasionally, though she was usually careful to avoid her. Arthur, restrained by his ingrained manners, only ever asked her about her husband the once.
“Nora, what was he like?” Whispered into her ear one night, just as her breathing was getting back to normal.
She wouldn't have answered- it wasn't the kind of thing a man should ask a woman, even if he was the crown prince and she was his mistress- except that she'd rarely ever heard that note in his voice. The one that meant uncertainty, that sounded like he was trying out a new horse and wasn't sure of his seat yet.
But she also wasn't stupid enough to answer unthinkingly. So she took a deep breath, and rolled over to face him, straightening the bedclothes as she went. She knew he loved it when she did that- her own patterns of neatness which he cheerfully assumed were a nod to his status and comfort. The longer she stayed with him, the more true it became- the comfort part, not the status- so she hadn't corrected him.
“He was... kind. Careful, thoughtful of others. Barely ever said a word in anger in his life, but most people liked him too much to walk all over him for it. A little clumsy. He... when you smile, it's like... the sunlight breaking through the clouds after a long dreary day. When he smiled... it was like coming inside to a warm fire in winter.”
“You still miss him.”
“Yes.”
He raised his hand slowly and smoothed a lock of hair back from her forehead. “You don't love me.”
“No, Arthur.”
“Good.” And he grinned a bit, and tugged her closer. And she went, and they fell asleep like that, curled up like kittens.
*
Three years later, just after his father died, he married Gwen in a ceremony with all of Camelot in attendance. The party afterward became the stuff of legend, and Arthur spent almost a month's revenue to pay for feeding everyone who came, peasant to noble and back again.
Nora didn't see any of it, though she heard the stories, after. He'd set her up in a cottage of her own, in a village on the other side of the city from the one where she'd been born, just as she'd asked. She stayed out of Camelot entirely for the next seven years, and any time it was rumored he'd be coming to her village, she found a reason to leave for a little while.
Her life was nothing like she'd planned it as a child- no children of her own, no husband- but as the seasons passed, she found it was exactly what she wanted. Quiet, pleasant, safe.
*
Until one cold winter's day when a man wearing a dark cloak appeared at her door, while she was teaching a sewing lesson. He had to remove his cloak and say her name twice before she recognized him, she had put that time of her life so thoroughly out of her mind. “Merlin?”
“He needs you, Nora. Will you come?” Merlin had always looked tired, way back when, but now he looked haggard, and too thin. She sent the children away.
“What happened?” And he told her. Gwen's betrayal, Lancelot's rescue, and Arthur hadn't slept in three days and was running his knights ragged preparing to go after them.
Nora had heard what Arthur had been like after Morgana's betrayal. She hadn't been there when his father died- not for more than a few days- because that meant Arthur could finally marry Gwen, and he'd sent her away as they'd planned out years beforehand. Losing Gwen now meant that all he had left was Merlin.
“But the agreement?”
“He's asked for you.” And several merry hells, that was a surprise.
“Merlin, I can't replace her. I was never what Gwen was to him.”
“He asked for you as his friend, Nora.”
And the relief on Merlin's face when she agreed to go was more worrisome than the pain that had been there earlier.
*
Standing on the top of a castle wall on a cold winter's day was windy, and freezing, and not at all romantic. All of which presumably had to do with why Arthur was here in the first place.
“Sire?”
His head dropped for a moment, and then he turned to face her. “Arthur, surely.”
She nodded. “Arthur.”
They stood there a few moments, each getting used to the way the other looked now. He was certainly noticing the lines on her face and the way her figure had changed now that the flush of youth was gone. She found she didn't really like the beard very much, at all.
Finally he spoke. “You don't love me, do you?”
“No, Arthur.” He nodded, and the beard meant she couldn't tell if that was resignation on his face. “But I have missed you, my friend.”
And she knew it was those last two words that made him smile- like the sun breaking through stubborn clouds- and open his arms to her.
He didn't have to tug, this time. She went.