Homecoming
It is early morning when a soft 'thump' against her front door wakes her. It is quite an innocuous sound, and yet an inexplicable voice tells her to go investigate. Being the woman she is, she knows better than to dismiss such voices. She slowly stands up and pulls a shawl over her shoulders. The fire in the hearth has gone out during the night. Padding over to the door, she looks out of the window and sees no one. Confused, she cautiously opens the door and gasps.
Slumped on the threshold is her grown son. His eyes are twin white slits under purple lids, and his face is gaunt from lack of sleep and food. She crouches beside him, and takes in his scraped and muddy palms, his torn clothes and the pale tracks tears have left on his sooty face. Somewhere along the way, he lost his red scarf.
It has been many years and yet with one look she understands instantly.
"Oh, Merlin," she says softly.
While time and age have weakened her, she still manages to carry her son inside and into his old bed, which she always keeps up, just in case. Though he struggles to stay awake, she coaxes him to sleep, a cool dry hand on his feverish brow. When he wakes up every few hours, eyes wild and gold-rimmed in fear, crying for his King, she clutches his hands and sings him to sleep; sings him songs of brave knights and grand adventures, of days that may never come. He screams and writhes like a mad man, like someone whose very soul is being ripped apart, she thinks, and yet she never leaves his side as she knows he had never left his King's.
On the second night since arriving in Ealdor, he wakes up properly. His eyes, rather than turbulent seas, have become clear, blank pools, their secrets hidden deep below layers of sediment.
"Merlin," she says.
"Mother," he responds quietly, sounding vaguely surprised to see her as though he cannot remember how he got here. It is the last and only thing he will says for days afterwards. She understands. He was too young to remember, but such grief is not new to her.
When her neighbours visit, asking questions about her worldly son, and about the rumors coming from Camelot, she turns them away. Not yet, she says. She doesn't confirm their suspicions, though she knows in her hear t they must be true.
It takes a while, but eventually she manages to get him to eat. She apologizes for the roughness, the country-ness of the food, knowing that he is used to better, but he doesn't seem to care. He does not leave the house, and she feels awful when, after he has slipped into sleep once more, she quickly sneaks out to buy something from the market or do the washing. She hates to think what would happen if he woke up alone.
After eight days, he finally begins to speak. He refuses to say the King's name, and he only speaks in short bursts punctuated by sleep or choked silence, but she understands nonetheless. After all this time, Arthur finally knew; finally understood everything that her son has sacrificed in his name. She breathes a small sigh of relief, thankful for this small consolation, though she does not tell him.
When he has finished his story, he begins to help her with the chores: he takes the stick of flint from the mantelpiece above the hearth and lights the fire by hand, striking away at the metal until a spark will catch amongst the tinder. She has not seen him use magic since he returned, though he mutters in languages of the Old Religion in his sleep.
Though he never speaks to anyone but her, he even follows her into the village, silently observing the villagers who had once persecuted him for his magic. She is assured that one day, his and Balinor's kind will be accepted and honoured, but for now, she is only reminded of the reasons he left Ealdor in the first place. As she has often done in the interim years since her son left, she debates whether it was better for Merlin to live in open persecution or in secrecy, fearing that his true identity would be revealed to those closest to him. She supposes that it doesn't matter anymore.
Eventually, word spreads that Merlin has returned to Ealdor, and one day a messenger appears at the door with a note from Gaius. Merlin is eating his midday meal at the table, and she stands in the doorway, trying her best to shield his view of the messenger's bright red Camelot livery.
"For you, ma'am," the messenger says, and hands her a small scroll of parchment.
She digs a coin out of her belt and hands it to him, shooing him away with a wave of her hand. Turning around, she expects to be interrogated by her son's curious gaze, but he doesn't even look up from his food. Carefully, she unrolls the scroll and reads it, standing by the window.
"It's from Gaius," she says. "He- he says he misses you, and wish you would come back to Camelot. Arthur's wife-" he flinches at the mention of the name and she corrects herself "-Guinevere has been named his successor and she is currently working to remove the ban against magic," she looks up at him. "You're free Merlin. You're finally free."
Merlin barely stirs at this declaration and she sighs, setting the scroll beside his bowl for him to read.
When he doesn't mention the note all the next day, she confronts him. They are sitting at the edge of forest, overlooking the village as the sun is sinking behind the mountains.
"Merlin," she begins, taking his hand. "I know that you are a grown man now, and that I am just your doting old mother, but if it makes any difference, I think you should go back."
He continues to stare off into the distance, his expression so blank she is unsure whether he has heard her.
"It's where you belong dear—I've always said that."
This time he looks at her, blinking slowly in the dying light of the day. "I used to think so," he says.
"I know it will be difficult," she continues, encouraged. "But you have friends there."
He looks fairly stunned at this. "Are you trying to get me to leave? Is that what this is about?" He tries to put heat into his voice but fails, his words falling monotonic from his lips.
"Of course not." She squeezes his hand. "You know that I love having you here, and when you're not I miss you with every breath. But Ealdor is not your home. Not anymore." He makes a noise of protest but she keeps going. "No one here will ever appreciate all that you've done Merlin—what you are truly capable of. You may be free to practice magic, but the next few years will not be easy. Gaius and Guinevere will need your help."
She watches him closely as tears began to make their way down his cheeks and fall into the folds of his scarf. "What if I can't help them? What good am I now?" he croaks bitterly.
She chooses her next words carefully, feeling as though she is holding her son's fragile heart in her hands as one would a baby bird. "Merlin, you knew Arthur better than any person in Camelot. Better than his own wife, I would suspect. You know what Arthur would want for Camelot, and for Albion. You can help them rebuild and then realize Arthur's plans for the future. Now that the war is over, you can finally start righting the wrongs of the Great Purge and Uther's reign... it's what he would want."
After a moment, he stands up, swaying slightly, and then walks into the forest. She watches him go, and calls out, "Merlin, where are you going?"
The only answer she receives is the quiet murmur of the wind through the trees.
She waits until the sky is dark enough to see the moon and the stars, and then walks back to the house. She doesn't know whether Merlin took her words to heart and left for Camelot, or was so offended by this suggestion that he has simply left her.
She leaves the front door unlatched, and turns down the blankets on his bed when she gets home. Perhaps he can't stand the thought of saying goodbye to her either. Perhaps it's just easier this way.
For most of the night, sleep remains out of her grasp, but when she when she wakes, Merlin is sitting at the table eating breakfast, the tips of his hair still slightly wet from washing his face like any other morning. If she were foolish, she might imagine that nothing has changed, and that he never left her, that he is untouched by time and pain. She is no fool.
"Merlin," she says.
"Mother," he responds in turn. She follows his gaze as, after a long pause, he nods towards a bag filled with supplies on the floor at his feet.
"I'm glad," she whispers, and feels tears form at the corner of her eyes.
"I can't stay away for long," he says, and she knows that he doesn't mean away from her. Though he doesn't say it, she can tell that it hurts him to be away from Avalon and Arthur—even if all that he has left of him is a fairy tale. Once and future.
"I know," she says as she clears away his empty bowl. "They will understand."
When he is ready to leave, they both stand in the doorway looking at each other in silence. Finally, she wraps her arms around him and breathes in, trying to preserve the smell and feel of him in her memory.
"I'm so proud of you," she whispers into the front of his shirt. "So proud." She wishes vainly that such words alone would have the ability to ease pain she has seen in his eyes, but she knows it is useless. He blames himself for what happened to Arthur, and it will take more than words to change that. Perhaps nothing can.
He lets himself be held by her, silently thanking her for everything that she has done for him. She knows that he is returning to Camelot not because he wants to, but to please her. And out of a sense of obligation to Arthur and the court. His homecoming will be painful, and yet she knows that this is what Merlin does best. He has carried the weight of the world on his shoulders for so long, always putting the desires of others before his own. Dreaming others' dreams until they become his own.
He deserves a break, and yet she cannot let him waste away. If what Merlin says is true, there will be plenty of time for waiting and mourning in the centuries to come.
"I met him," he says after several moments.
She steps back slightly to gaze up at him, never not surprised by how tall he's grown, as is a mother's wont. "Your father?"
He nods, and speaks slowly, "He still loves you very much. And- even if you can't see him anymore, he's still here by your side. He always has, and he always will be. He told me that."
She hugs him again, rubbing circles into his back with palm. "I never doubted it," she says. "And neither should you."
Merlin gives her a searching look as he adjusts the straps on his pack.
"Two sides, remember?" she says with a weak smile.
They walk hand in hand out into the midday sunshine, the tiny village bustling with activity. He gives her a kiss on the cheek, and she brushes one of his cheekbones with the pad of her thumb. Though they feel it in their hearts, they won't say the words aloud.
She bites her lip and watches him as he takes the first steps on the long journey back to Camelot, into the aftermath of Arthur. While she may not have the power of prophesy, even she can see that this is not the end; his destiny is just beginning to unfold.
It is the last time she will see him until, 20 long years later, he visits her while she is on her deathbed. He hasn't aged a day.