For the language prompt: Kintsukuroi—(Japanese) to repair pottery with gold, with the understanding that the piece is made more beautiful by having been broken.

Not for the first time in recent months, Merlin finds Harry bowed over his desk, his head in his hands. Though he'd come prepared with an update on Lancelot and Galahad's assignment, he decides there are more pressing matters at hand and closes the door behind him with a soft click. He pauses by the doorway, trading his tablet for the pitcher of water on the table and filling one of the matching glasses.

Harry knows he's here, Merlin's certain of that, but he remains quiet as Merlin makes his way across the office.

"Have you had any aspirin?" Merlin asks, his voice barely above a whisper.

Harry deigns to answer him only with an unhappy, undignified grunt. In truth, the question hadn't really needed to be asked, but Merlin had posed it all the same, hoping that for once he might be surprised by the answer.

Placing the glass of water at Harry's elbow, he dips down and pulls open the middle drawer on the left side of the desk. The bottle is where it always is, resting at the front of the drawer, undisturbed. He shakes out two pills, placing them beside the glass of water before returning the bottle to the drawer and stepping away from the desk.

"Take those," he says, walking towards the windows. He begins drawing the blinds, pulling the curtains tight over them so that not even a sliver of light might slip through. Without looking away from his task, he adds, "Finish the glass."

There is a soft snort before Harry croaks, "Yes, mother."

It's become a nearly practiced routine by this point. Time after time, Harry will sit and do his very best to wait out the dull throb in his left temple, waiting and waiting until it's like a vice on his whole head from which Merlin must pry him loose.

"I don't understand why you do this to yourself," Merlin says quietly as he returns to the desk, the room bathed in a comfortable darkness.

"You know very well why," Harry says, his tone accusatory and pinched with pain.

Well, yes, that's true. But Harry is a stubborn man at the best of times and getting him to talk about this requires some needling. If Merlin has to play dumb to do that, he considers it well worth his time.

"Here," he says, reaching toward the other man.

Gently, he brushes Harry's hands aside. Their Arthur's graying hair is unkempt from where his hands had been buried in it for so long and Merlin takes a brief moment to run his fingers through it, doing what he can to return it to something approaching tidy. Harry sighs, leaning into the other man's touch, and soon enough Merlin's fingers are gently kneading and massaging, doing what he can to help ease his partner's pain.

"Cold hands are a sign of poor circulation, you know," Harry murmurs, eyes closed. "You really ought to see Morgana about that."

"Cold hands can also be a sign of typing for hours in a very cool room," Merlin says. "Besides, you don't seem to mind them all that much now."

He slides one hand around the back of Harry's neck, pressing lightly at the base of his skull. Harry offers an appreciative groan, one that brings a faint smile to Merlin's face.

"Come away from your desk," he says. "Just for a short while."

Harry puts up a brief protest, as always, but in the end they wind up on the leather couch just the same as they always do. In the dark and quiet, with his head in Merlin's lap and Merlin's hands working their magic, Harry begins to relax. The pain is slow to leave him but that comes as no surprise to either of them. What does is Harry's sudden admission.

"I'd have thought I'd be healed by now," he says.

Merlin's hands pause, caught off guard by Harry's sudden willingness to approach the subject that they always wind up dancing around.

"That was an estimation," Merlin reminds him. "Head wounds are unpredictable, Harry. There's no saying one way or another how someone may heal from them."

"But this is really getting to be too much," Harry argues. "I've been patient. I've done everything Morgana has prescribed, I've submitted myself to your constant mothering and still I find I'm…"

Merlin can feel the dull throb of the vein in Harry's temple beneath his fingers and shushes him quietly. Harry relaxes, marginally, breathing out a heavy sigh to relieve some of the tension he'd built up in himself.

"I have difficulty focusing. I can hardly see out of my left eye. My reflexes are dulled. Not to mention these… infernal migraines that come without warning. They were supposed to have grown fewer in number by now and yet here they are, as frequent as ever," Harry says, frustration leaking into his voice. "How am I to be a proper Arthur if—"

"No," Merlin cuts him off, resting a hand on his forehead. "That's enough, Harry."

Harry doesn't want to stop. He wants to yell and scream and curse the unfairness of it all. But Merlin's tone won't allow him to continue.

"Morgana gave you an approximation of where you might expect to be six months down the line," Merlin tells him. "But you conveniently seem to have forgotten that she also said there would be some parts of you that would never heal, parts of you which might never be the same as they were. That's difficult to hear and more difficult to come to terms with, but don't ever think that you are of any less worth for your broken parts. Ask anyone here and they'll tell you just how much you're worth to them."

"I don't very much like being broken," Harry mutters.

"I'll take you broken and here to the alternative," Merlin says quietly. He brushes his hand back, off of Harry's head and through his hair. Harry's eyes open at the action, gazing up at Merlin with an intensity that belies his pain. "You ask too much of yourself and give yourself no credit for the things you've accomplished. Healing takes time, inside and out."

Harry makes a soft noise of disagreement. "I just… It's difficult. Not being the same man I was."

"Would you laugh at me if I told you that I believe you're a better man than before?" Merlin wonders aloud.

"You had some issues with my character beforehand?" Harry snorts.

Merlin gazes down at him with patient amusement. "Not so much as I believe that an event such as this one changes people and that you've changed for the better. It can just as easily change someone for the worse and you've come through it all with a sense of… dignity. Strength. Understanding. Change can be painful, but it's not always a bad thing, Harry. Being a changed man doesn't have to be a punishment, even if those changes are difficult to deal with."

Harry doesn't answer straight away. Merlin knows they could talk themselves hoarse and he would still find something to be unhappy about. He can't be blamed so much for that—he's in pain and frustrated by his apparent lack of progress. But if Merlin can just remind him of how far he's come so he might instead focus on that rather than how far he may yet have to go, then the conversation will have served its purpose.

Merlin is curious when Harry reaches for his hand, but feels himself relax when Harry places a kiss to his wrist, just above his pulse point.

"I'm sorry, you must think terribly of me for all my complaining," he says.

"Anything but," Merlin assures him. His fingertips lightly trace over the scar tissue to the left of Harry's eye. "Well, save for when you whine about how I let the dogs sleep in our bed—"

"Merlin."

A small smile comes to Merlin's face at the way his name is spoken: chastising, but laced with fondness. Yes, Harry Hart is a changed man. A broken man, in some respects. But for all of that, Merlin finds he loves him every bit as much as he had before—and more, in fact. Words could never adequately describe how Harry's loss had left him feeling as though he were walking around with a gaping hole in his chest; a dark, sinking void that couldn't be filled and consumed everything around it. He's tried, but every explanation he's offered feels lacking.

It's difficult to explain how Harry's apparent death has altered Merlin's perception of him. He thinks it might sound silly if he were to say that something as simple as listening to Harry breathe beside him in bed or even the scratch of his stubble when he leans in for an early morning kiss before showering have become moments to be treasured. Where before they were routine, mundane, everyday occurrences, now they're bright little beacons through the course of the day. There's a beauty in his restoration of life that Harry can't seem to see and Merlin can't seem to explain to him. Simply the fact that he is here and alive is in itself more precious to Merlin than words could do justice.

"Where would I be, I wonder," Harry says softly, breaking his thoughts, "without you? What would Arthur do without his Merlin?"

"Mope and drive yourself mad with pain, I'd imagine," Merlin answers. "You're a terrible patient."

Harry smiles.

Merlin smiles back.

And perhaps words aren't needed after all.