To be honest, I have no idea where this even came from. I was up late last night and couldn't sleep...and I was thinking about this...and ended up writing this.
Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin.
It was very late at night. Gaius was still up, sitting at his work table with a large book opened up in front of him. A quill was held in his hand and a piece of paper lay in front of him. He was jotting down notes, attempting to expand his already vast knowledge.
His work was progressing nicely. Pretty soon he would lay his quill down for the night and go to bed. He just wanted to finish this one chapter…
Suddenly, a door slammed, causing him to knock over the jar of ink sitting next to his hand. "Merlin!" he shouted, for he knew his young ward to be the cause of the disturbance. He looked up to see his ward standing in front of him. An excited look was plastered across his face.
"Gaius, I couldn't sleep so I was doing some thinking," Merlin said as he began to pace back and forth.
Gaius felt his eyebrow rise. Merlin thinking was not always the best thing. "I might regret asking, but what were you thinking about?"
Merlin turned around and walked right up to Gaius' work table. He placed his hands firmly on the table and looked Gaius straight in the eye. "Two words: parallel universes."
There was silence in the chambers. Gaius stared at the man in front of him, trying to comprehend what he had just been told. "…Parallel universes? What, pray tell, is a parallel universe?" Gaius questioned.
In his excitement, Merlin began pacing once again. "Think about it. We exist in this world, right? What is there to say that other worlds do not exist at the same time as our own?" Gaius chose not to respond to Merlin's question. "I'm going to call these other worlds parallel universes. To my way of thinking, it all started with one universe. However, when choices started having to be made, different universes formed, each starting a new world where a different course of action took place. Are you following me?"
At this, Merlin stopped his pacing to turn and stare at Gaius. Gaius just sat in his chair, a confused look on his face. "To be honest, no."
"Hmm…how shall I explain this? Okay, let's try this. Each universe is like a branch on a tree. There are multiple branches that are all connected to one central location. Better? Good. Now, some worlds are more similar to others. If we're going to go with the tree metaphor, some branches would be closer to the central location than others."
Gaius was still confused, but he just chose to go along with his ward's ramblings.
"For example, a world where I forgot to wash Arthur's socks would be closer to our world than a world where I didn't manage to save that prat from Lady Helen."
Merlin continued his train of thought long into the night. Finally, he let out a loud breath and said, "It's just a theory, but what do you think?"
Gaius stared at Merlin for several long minutes, trying to come up with a way to voice his opinions. Finally, he just decided to say, "You're crazy! Parallel universes? Worlds that our closer to our own than others? That's all a bunch of hogwash!"
With that, Gaius lifted himself from his chair and walked over to his bed and promptly fell asleep. Merlin was left standing in the middle of the room, a slightly hurt expression on his face.
I don't know if I'll add anything else to this or not...I have a couple ideas from my late night musings that could fit into this, but we will have to see.