The lake was crystal clear, sunshine glinting down upon it from overhead, causing the shimmering liquid to sparkle under the rays of light. The lush green of the hills that framed it created a picturesque location, a photographer's dream.
But Merlin had seen the beauty of the lake on every possible occasion; in summer, in winter, in rain, snow, and in sun. It no longer stole his breath away.
Nothing did, really.
The beach mirroring the mountains was small, but it was warm, the heated grains of sand running between his fingers, the cool water lapping up at his bare feet; he wasn't deep enough into the water for the tide to lap onto his rolled up jeans. Merlin didn't notice much of this, though, for after hours upon hours, days upon days, seated out here in this exact position, the novelty had, like the lake itself, worn out.
The only thing Merlin cared about was what lay beneath it.
But even that thought was growing dimmer and dimmer in his mind.
Which was why he was back here, at the home of his greatest heartbreak, when he could have been in Japan, or Rome, or California, or any place in the world that he had never visited, or that he had visited too often or maybe only once.
Instead he was sitting at Lake Avalon, feet wet and fingernails caked with grains of sand, wishing he was in one of those places instead of right here.
"Arthur," he said aloud, voice gravelly from lack of use over the past few days. He had traveled here from Toronto this time. Last time it had been Romania. The time before that, South Africa.
His visits had gotten more sporadic over the years.
"Arthur," he said again, louder this time, because he could. No one was going to hear him, anyway; the only person who had the chance of hearing his lonely, desperate call was the man himself that Merlin so violently sought after.
There was no response, though. There never was. Not in over a thousand years. Not even once.
It was enough to drive a person off the edge, drive them mad, or drive them to drink. Drive them to give up.
Merlin might be doing that now.
"Just say something," he whispered, voice breaking as he gazed over the entirely peaceful shore. "Say something. Say anything."
And suddenly he could hear Arthur in his head, laughing and smiling and whole, calling Merlin some rude name or ordering him about, and Merlin almost smiled. But it was only his mind, only his memories, for the lake was as quiet as ever, water rippling slightly in the breeze.
"I'm giving up!" Merlin called, louder this time, increasing the chances of the blonde dollophead and his selective hearing actually paying attention to the weak and pathetic cries of a man too old for his skin. "I'm sorry, but I'm giving up! I can't do this for another thousand years, Arthur! So this is it. Give me sign, give me anything at all, and I'll stay."
And because waiting was his specialty, Merlin patiently sat, listening for a response. He didn't expect one, but it was nice to hope.
He really did mean it, though. After century upon century of pain, he knew that he wasn't strong enough. He couldn't go through that again. Everything in Camelot, everything he had done, everyone he had loved, was but a memory fading to black. It was over his head, this destiny, it always had been, and it was only in these intervening years of perpetual waiting that he realized how little he had known back then. How little he could have anticipated.
He had never felt as small as he did then, knees curled up to his chest, wet feet sticking to sand.
"Arthur," he said once more, hours later, because it had been silent for too long, and Merlin had always been the sort to fill silences. "I'm waiting. I'm always waiting. Don't make me say goodbye."
They never had before. Arthur had refused, that first time, and Merlin had been grateful. If they never said goodbye, there was always the possibility of a future. With the absence of a goodbye, Merlin had been granted a purpose. A faith, in a way.
But the faith was slowly evaporating, collapsing in upon itself, and Merlin let out a choked sob. Because Arthur wasn't saying anything.
He hadn't cried in the past two hundred years, so the hot, salty liquid running down his cheeks was an unfamiliar experience.
When the sun began to set that night, painting the sky red and gold, Merlin cried out again, one last attempt, one last desperate plead.
"Please. Arthur, please. I'd do anything. Just don't make me give up; don't make me let you go. I love you and I don't want to let you go."
There. He had said it. The words that had always been true, that would always be true, even after the inevitable goodbye, even after Merlin left this lake for a final time, even after time itself turned to dust and Merlin was all that was left of this wretched universe.
When there was still nothing, Merlin stood, yelling out again and swallowing the last remaining pieces of his long shattered pride. "Did you hear me, you great prat? I'm leaving! So say something!"
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Merlin dropped back to his knees, a hopeless and ugly sound coming out of the back of his throat as he screamed. He screamed and cried and ranted for all the times he could have left and didn't, all the times he tried to forget, and how this one was the only one that seemed real, that seemed as if he could do this, he could really move on.
But fate, as always, never let him go that easily.
Or maybe this time, it wasn't fate, destiny, Kilgharrah, or any of the other forces Merlin had grown to loathe with a burning passion over these long and tired years.
Maybe the voice he heard echoing out over the lakeside, and yet also in every nook and crevice of his mind, wasn't any of those things.
Maybe it was Arthur's voice, low and rich with the undertones of pleading and begging, just as Merlin's was, with only a simple word.
"Merlin!"
And now, maybe Merlin was crying for a different reason entirely.