The Warlock
If one thing had to be said about Gaius' life, was that it wasn't made of easy choices.
His whole life had been shaped by those – as everyone's live is created by choosing one thing over another –, but if he were honest with himself, most people hadn't had to make such harsh ones.
His king or his kin.
His happiness or Alice's safety.
Truth or Treason.
It seemed to him, some days, that the whole burden of the kingdom had come to rest in his old shoulders. As he saw people die for simple causes, that science had yet to find a cure, but that magic could easily solve, or as he voiced his fears and allowed Uther's crusade against magic to go on, because it was a threat, he wondered if he was now paying for all the sins of all his past lives; only to try and silence the voice that asked him for how long he's have to pay for the ones he committed during this existence.
Some people – ever Merlin or Kilgarrah, that also knew about hard choices – seemed to think it was easy, or that it didn't torn him apart every time he had to do something like that. They didn't seem to imagine that Gaius' heart broke every time he had to hide the truth from Morgana (for her own safety, it was his duty, wasn't it? He loved her like his own child, he couldn't allow him to break) or from Arthur (he had been the first person to hold the prince, he could still remember his wails as Ygraine faded). They didn't appear to notice that Gaius struggled to accept Uther's ideas even when he disagreed with them, because he couldn't stand magic to be used as a tool of the powerful, victimizing the innocent.
It wasn't easy, it would never be easy. But it was the path that he chose, and he did it as well as he could. Would he have stayed if he had known, then, how much it would break his heart and waste his soul? And yet, if he was in the position to help those who needed help from both sides, even if it were against the law and betraying the king's trust, how could he not?
He had sworn vows, as a physician and a priest, and they bound him to route, harsh as it may be, hard as it might make him. It was his duty, and he wouldn't shrink from it, even if he broke the law. It was the road he had chosen, and the one he would stay, even if it coasted him his life, because his own demise meant little if those he had loved and cared for stayed safe.
"I am ready to confess."