Seen but not Remembered

                                    

                                          
90 years later
Merlin didn't immediately notice the beautiful women walking into the tea house, but every other man did. Only when their voices drift towards him did his attention snap up. One of them laughed and Merlin's breath caught in his throat. It was Gwen. She turned slightly and he saw the impossible. The smile that lit up her face and the room around her, the laugh that infected everyone else. Not the old woman he had said goodbye to centuries ago, but the young woman she had been when they met. She caught his eye and quickly looked away. There was a time Merlin might have been ashamed of staring, but after a thousand years of waiting, he felt he could never look away.
"That guy is watching me," he heard (through some magical enhancement) Gwen whisper to her friend. "Shh, don't look! Okay, but discreetly."
"Which one?" asked the other woman in a hauntingly familiar Irish accent. She turned around as if to look out the window. Morgana. Except - she was the girl Merlin remembered from his first years at the castle. She had an innocence about her. A kindness he remembered sometimes in dreams. 
"Don't look! Look, of course, but don't look. The pasty Irish boy by himself, with the blue eyes." Merlin's apparent age had gone up and down over the years, always somewhere between late twenties and his original old man. For reasons unknown, today he had woken up as a young man again.
Morgana's gaze met Merlin's and held it. She had none of the hate he remembered, just curiosity. Her green eyes were smiling and happy. After a moment she looked back to Gwen and said, "You're right. That's odd. Does he look . . . familiar to you?"
Gwen looked at him out of the corner of her eyes. "Not really. I think I would remember that face. Wouldn't you?"
"Gwen! What would Lance say!" scolded Morgana, but she considered his looks and came to the conclusion that this was valid. "Is he still looking?"
"Yes. That's kind of creepy. He doesn't look scary, but why else would he be staring?" said Gwen. Morgana looked back at him, and this time neither was abashed by looking him directly in the eye.
"Maybe he's sad," suggested Morgana. "I'm going to go talk to him."
"What! No, wait," said Gwen, pulling her friend back. Morgana gently removed her hand and left the line to walk over to Merlin. She sat at his table and spoke frankly. 
"Hello. I'm Morgan. I saw you watching me and my friend." Merlin considered his response to this. This was Morgana, most evil witch in history, smiling and introducing herself to him like a confident, extroverted person did when they wanted to meet someone else. She didn't know him, she couldn't. This was another person entirely. She may look like Morgana, may have her soul, but the evil Morgana was dead. She was driven evil by magic, and only Merlin had magic now. This was the Morgana as Merlin had first known her; sweet and kind and loving.
"I'm - Merlin."
"Are you actually, or was that just the first name you thought of?" said Morgana. "If you're going for mysterious stranger, is he friend or foe vibe, it's working."
Merlin snorted. This was a conversation he never could have imagined. "I am actually Merlin. I wasn't sure whether to use my true name."
"I like it. It's old-fashioned, like that wizard in The Sword and the Stone," chimed in Gwen, carrying two mugs of tea over to the table. She sat down as far away from Merlin as she could. Morgana smiled at her.
"Merlin, this is my best friend, Gwen," Morgana told him. He felt a sudden pain behind his eyes. It had been so long since he had cried for Gwen, but to see her again, a ghost in vivid color, it was all he could do to hold back the tears.
"Nice to meet you. If you don't mind me asking, why were you staring at us?"
What could he say? He couldn't tell the truth; they'd never believe him. Although . . . If these truly were Gwen and Morgana in another life, they would be like his Gwen and Morgana. They could believe him. Could they? A partial truth, then.
"You remind me of old friends. Have we met before?" he asked. Gwen immediately denied it, but Morgana didn't seem so sure.
"You do have a certain familiarity about you," she admitted to Merlin. "But I have no memory of you. Where did you grow up?"
Merlin thought quickly. He couldn't tell her the truth, so he simply said, "A few miles away from here in Glastonbury, in more Northern Somerset." It wasn't exactly a lie; years ago Camelot and the outlying villages were located in modern South-West England.
"Really? You don't sound it. I'm from Ireland, myself. I feel as if we've met before, yet I know I've never seen you before. How can that be?" She seemed to have grown quite comfortable with Merlin, but Gwen still kept her distance. Merlin knew that it would take time for them to trust him.
"Do you believe in past lives?" he asked hesitantly. Neither, to his surprise, laughed. They glanced at each other in surprise, but stayed silent. "What is it?"
"I do," answered Guinevere. "Sometimes I see people in history books that look just like people I know. And sometimes I see someone that I have never met before, but I just feel . . . something for them. Like my boyfriend Lance."
"Ah, yes. Gwen thinks that she and Lance were soulmates in another life," laughed Morgana. It wasn't cynical, as she would have been before she died. She paused and looked at Merlin. "You're a good listener, Merlin. I hope you don't turn out to be a murderer or kidnapper or something awful like that. I should like to be your friend."
Merlin was stunned, but not as much as he would have thought. Morgana had been so kind before everything happened. So kind and so beautiful, as she was now. If she truly was an untarnished Morgana, could he reform her before whatever had summoned her and Gwen back came? There must be a reason they were here, and at the same time, and could that reason restore their memories? Could it bring Arthur back?