Stronger
A Merlin Fanfic by Kitty O.
I always had these horrible nightmares; for most of my life I feared sleeping because I never knew when something would rise up in my mind, and I'd wake up screaming. When I dreamed about those scary things, Gaius gave me a sleeping draught. Vile-tasting, but oh-so-wonderful; it kept back the nightmares for a short time.
But soon the nightmares learned their way around my medicine-induced sleep. They began to haunt me in even in the daytime, and I saw some of my dreams coming true, which terrified me to the core. Gaius would combat this by making me take something 'stronger', and again, for a short time, my sleep was peaceful. But when the medicine strengthened so did the dreams. They, too, grew stronger until the sleeping draught was no use against them. Again I woke up screaming and dreading that these nightmares would come to pass. Again Gaius made a new batch of sleeping draughts. It was a relentless cycle that made up my life.
I dreamed that a woman drowned Arthur, smirking as he sank beneath the water and disappeared from sight. Gaius gave me something stronger.
I dreamed Arthur was bitten by a deadly beast, and that he lay helpless and fading from the world. I ran out of the castle, trying to warn him, firmly convinced that it would come to pass and Arthur would die. And Gaius gave me something even stronger.
I dreamed such horrible things, and my terror spilled over and things in my room caught fire. I was convinced it was magic, but Gaius just made 'something stronger' and patted my head.
Strong, stronger, strongest. It never seemed to stop. My dreams persisted.
I joked to Gwen once that if the potions kept failing, Gaius might just have to forego the polite guise of physician and knock me out with a good clout on the head. That would put me to sleep! Her shocked face let me know that she didn't find that so funny at all.
After musing over it for a while, I decided she was right. It wasn't funny. After all, what happened when the dreams got so powerful that that could push and bully their way into my unconscious body? What could I take that was stronger then?
With a little smile at my own dry humor, I thought if the nightmares didn't stop, Gaius would just maybe be forced, for lack of a better treatment, to kill me. After all, there's no sleep stronger than death.
But then, whoever claimed to know for sure that the dead can't dream?
The nightmares didn't stop. Gaius never did get around to killing me or even knocking me out, but sometimes I still wondered if I would drive him to it someday.
A/N: I don't know if that was deep or just was, but that's okay. Maybe the reviewers will tell me? I thought of this when I realized how many times Gaius said, "I'll give you something stronger." Poor girl. Pretty soon he'd just have to hit her with an anvil. Review?