We don't stay because of gravity. We stay because we like it.

Title: Gwen Knows
Rating: R
Pairing: Arthur/Gwen
Wordcount: ~200
Summary: Post 4x05 drabble for a prompt by brightporclain on tumblr (S4 spoilers, highlight to read): [It's so wrong, but now I kinda wanna read a AU fic were Arthur actually did die and Merlin had to give the ring to Guinevere and tell her how Arthur said he was sorry.]
A/N: Originally posted here. Unbeta'd.
Warnings: S4 spoilers. Major character death.

On Livejournal

Gwen knows.

She knows because the sounds of the grief reach her almost the moment Arthur’s body enters Camelot with its solemn procession, The dull roar of the crowd waiting for its king spreading through the city and into her home like a pestilence. She knows.

(In years to come she’ll think maybe she knew before that, maybe she knew the moment it happened, the moment he fell, and perhaps she’ll convince herself so thoroughly that she’ll forget it isn’t true.)

Gwen knows, and when Merlin stumbles into her house, grubby and sharking and tear-stained, he doesn’t have to say anything, so he does not, and they stand amid the noise of the grieving city.

He steels himself, and holds out Arthur’s ring, awkward, his hands clammy and trembling. “He said,” he says, takes a breath. “He wanted me. To give you this.”

The metal is cold in her palm.

“And he said,” Merlin chokes out, “He said to say he was sorry.”

His knees give out, overwhelmed by the grief and the exhaustion of it, and Gwen follows him to the floor.

She knows she should feel something, because Arthur is dead and Merlin is coming apart in her arms and Camelot is splintering around them, but she is numb, mute, the muteness in her lungs threatening to choke her, a dreadful silence settling over her, because there’s nothing at all.