Chapter 4

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In the years since Arthur's death, the instances in which Merlin used his powers were few and far in between. Killing Morgana and Agravaine had not been pleasant, and it was the first time he had used magic to kill someone. (Some might argue that using Excalibur to kill Morgana was not necessarily magic but Merlin begged to differ. Excalibur was magic and so was he). He used magic sparingly now, though it pained him. Mostly to alter his appearance and create the paper work needed to validate his existence in today's world. (There was so damned much of it. How he longed for the days of Camelot, with no pesky paper work to deal with).

Situations in which magic was essential was when Merlin gave in to his true nature. Situations like this.

What he was going to do next was something he hadn't attempted in a number of years. Merlin was going to try and fabricate his existence entirely from scratch. The last time he'd made any sort of identification for himself was during the times of the second and first world war. He had fought in Camlann so what was the point of withholding his power in such a tense situation such as a world war.

Merlin had been shocked by the intensity of the war, so different from hand - to - hand combat with such deadly projectile weapons and the abundance of toxic gasses used in chemical warfare, Merlin had barely survived by the skin of his teeth. But this, this situation, finding Arthur, was different. It was a question of Merlin's survival. He had to know that he and Arthur had crossed paths again for a reason.

Merlin entered his room and glanced around. It was probably the size of Gaius's workshop back in Camelot. Keyes had placed a large wrought iron bed in the center, with 3 large pillows sitting at its head and covered in a fluffy white duvet. On the left side, there was a large closet with mirrors for doors that slid open in an accordion fashion and on the right side of the bed was a wooden desk, parallel to the head of the bed. Next to the desk was a wall to wall window, looking out on to the busy metropolitan street below. Directly opposite the bed was a en suite bathroom with a humble shower/bathtub combo and separate bath closet.

It was probably the most luxurious lodging he'd had in his entire existence. Merlin shook himself out of his reverie and entered his room, shutting the door behind him and settling on his bed. He figured he had about 30 minutes before Keyes was ready to leave. which is how long he now had time to construct himself a new identity.

Merlin closed his eyes and concentrated, trying to visualize the papers and documentation needed to prove his identity. He focused on creating a birth certificate from the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital for his birth, and in order to qualify for school and yet still be Arthur's peer, Merlin would have to be 18 years old, which would put his approximate birth year in 1998. He put blanks in the section for parents on the birth certificate, indicating an abandoned baby at the hospital and therefore no parents to speak of. Lived in various foster homes, which explain the multitude of scars and wounds that covered his body from years of living through different time eras, different injuries, by different people. Explaining the 7 huge scars on his back that traveled down to his legs, not to mention the other various remnants of cuts and gouges that peppered his body, would be a tad difficult without that convenient cover.

Next would be his schooling history. Public school would make sense after being placed in foster care, which would be consistent with a desire to perform exceptionally in the hopes of creating a better life for himself away from the harsh environment that his foster care family created. Not high enough to be top runner but high enough to qualify as runner up for the scholarship. He would be displacing the actual runner up but Merlin made sure to relocate her somewhere that she would create the same thread of life that she would have created in Hartwick Academy.

When Merlin opened his eyes, a thin sheen of sweat covered his face from the exertion of practicing magic for such an extended period of time. He hadn't used enchantments like that since Bakers Street.

He stretched and looked around, taking in his surroundings again. This would be his life now. In this apartment, with Keyes, he would spend the rest of his time watching over his King for the rest of his natural life.

Merlin heard Keyes come out into the kitchen area again, hearing the jingling of keys on the counter and Keyes shuffling as he put his socks on. He hurried to put on some jeans and a simple plaid button down before grabbing his rucksack and meeting Keyes at the front door.

"Keyes," The doctor turned around while shrugging into his jacket.

"Yes Mer - Marlin?" The doctor now wore black trousers paired with a white dress shirt and had now put on a black blazer jacket with a name tag pinned to the breast pocket just under the Hartwick Academy school crest.

"I - uh - I changed legal records to show that you adopted me over the summer." Merlin looked a little sheepish, since he hadn't exactly asked to mess with his records so now he was wondering if he'd over stepped his boundaries.

Keyes smiled at his comment and swiped his keys off the counter.

"Well then, son, I should probably warn you that if we don't leave right now, then you will almost certainly be late." Merlin broke out in a wide smile as he put his shoes on and followed the doctor out the front door and into the hallway of the apartment complex. Keyes locked the door and turned to him, a smile on his face, so like the wry smiles that Gaius used to give him.

"Well then, off to your first day of school."

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Merlin felt his jaw drop as the gates of Hartwick Academy opened and they were permitted inside the premises. The school sat just outside of Central London, on a 10, 000 acre lot of greenery and foliage, in the middle of which the Academy sprawled out. It was a majestic and expansive building, which was constructed under clearly Roman or Greek influence. The entrance to the institution was accessed through a solemn looking gate of re-in forced steel, nearly 15 ft high.

Once inside, Merlin was greeted with a hallway paved with shining marble that extended both to his left and right whilst immediately in front of him were two huge glass doors that led to a sprawling courtyard as large as a football field and surrounded on each side by the building it was encased in. Merlin could see a sea of white and black uniforms as students mingled and talked.

Merlin allowed himself to be lead by Keyes, who found him a uniform, a book bag and managed to enroll him in all of Arthur's courses, which unsurprisingly focused on management. Then, before he knew it, Merlin was standing outside of his home room class. He tried to ignore the teacher and zeroed in on the fact that behind that dark, foreboding door was Arthur Pendragon.

Arthur was behind that door.

The tension he felt made him remember all the times that he gone off on quests with Arthur, where he'd been sure they would die and some how just knowing Arthur was here, again, alive, made him more nervous than when he'd faced Morgana, Morgause and even Agravaine.

The more pressing question was whether Arthur knew he was Arthur. Did he remember? What would he do if he did? What would he do if he didn't? What if more of them were re-incarnated, what would it mean? What was the reason for all this in first place? Why had Arthur come back?

Suddenly Merlin couldn't move, he was so paralyzed with fear.

Merlin was unsure of everything and was so overcome with fear that that coherent thought eluded him.

"Merlin."

Keyes' whisper in his ear made him jump, by saying his name under his breath. "We all came back for a reason but, there's no rush. You waited 500 years, you can wait a few more days for all the answers. Just go at your own pace."

With a reassuring pat on the back, Keyes shuffled down the hallway towards what Merlin presumed was his office. He turned and followed the teacher into the classroom on pins and needles. Merlin turned around and took a deep breath and followed his teacher into the classroom.

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It was somewhat a relief to find that his entrance into the class had been of little interest to his classmates. They had barely glanced at him when he entered the room. It made it all the more easier for him to spot Arthur without looking like he was watching him.

Arthur sat at the back of his class, dressed to perfection (clearly that tick of his had stuck with him. At least now it wasn't Merlin that had to fix his wardrobe up for him). Merlin was almost not surprised to find that Arthur was talking Leon because of course he was. The man was nothing if not loyal. There were a couple of other boys he didn't recognize but that was to be expected. Arthur wasn't going to only come in contact with Camelot reincarnates.

As Merlin walked to his seat in the back, his eyes briefly met with Arthur's, and a distinct feeling passed through him. Arthur's eyes noticeably darkened as he looked at Merlin. The gaze was so undeniably Arthur and yet it was never a look that he'd bestowed upon Merlin , as suddenly as the moment had presented itself, it disappeared and Merlin wasn't sure if he'd felt anything at all.

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It was lunch and Merlin was perched in the corner of the court yard, away from prying eyes as he ate the sandwich that he'd packed from home. He'd been introduced to the class as Marlin Keyes and despite his hopes, the teacher, a Mr. Collins, had gone ahead and informed the class that he was the adopted son of the Medics Department Head and coincidentally the new scholarship student. Suddenly everyone was interested and Merlin could practically feel Arthur's gaze boring a hole in his skull.

So much for inconspicuousness.

He had no doubt that these children of the elite class would soon root through his paper history and learn all they needed to about him.

Even now, Merlin had opted to eat a homemade lunch as opposed to availing himself to the school restaurant as the others had, which now made him the object of everyone's scrutiny. Merlin could feel their eyes on him as he packed the trash from his lunch and got up to chuck it into the bin.

Beyond the two glances that Arthur had given him, he'd been largely ignored, which was fine by Merlin and when pressed to make groups in class, Merlin had resisted the urge to look at Arthur and instead taken up the offer of the student that sat next to him.

He mused at the new Arthur he was seeing. He possessed the same qualities as before, the need for perfection, the strive for being the best and yet also that maddening quality in him that chose to lord his perfection over others.

Speaking of his King, Merlin heard the sounds of Arthur's voice before he saw him, a great crowd of burly men, much like Arthur, came spilling into the courtyard, from the glass doors opposite Merlin. They were wearing sports jerseys (of course Arthur's jersey was proudly displaying a #1), and were maintaining a circle formation around a clearly new initiate, a freshman kid. They whipped a rugby ball back and forth to each other. Arthur was chucking the rugby ball past the kid with alarming speed laughing as the ball would every so often clip the student, making him yelp.

"Come on, don't stop now! I'm only just getting started." Arthur called to the student, catching the ball and whipping it past his face,

The kid, whose name was Morris as Merlin could make out, had stopped running, hands braced on his knees, panting to catch his breath.

"Don't stop moving, keep running! How else will I practice for the game, Morris?" The former King's voice was taunting and smug.

Merlin sighed. Once a prat, always a prat. It's practically in their blood.

"Do keep up will you, you daft fool." The other members of the team laughed at Arthur's jibes at the boy.

The ball whipped by poor Morris again, bopping him on the head and bouncing off, rolling to a stop in front of Merlin. He stepped on the ball when Morris came to pick up it up, shaking his head at the boy, who looked at him half fearfully and half relieved.

"Come on guys, that's enough now."

The words were out of Merlin's mouth before he could stop them.

Arthur stopped and seemed to really look at Merlin for the first time. He shook his head minutely, like he couldn't believe what he'd just heard. Behind him, his friends watched interested-ly.

"What?" The words were slow, languid, like he was playing with a toy that didn't understand its own function.

"You've had your fun mate, now cut him loose." Merlin said again, locking eyes with Arthur, much like the first time he'd met the prince on his training ground.

"Do I know you?" Arthur said, the question dripped with underlying tones of 'butt out or so help me, I will make you'

Merlin extended his hand out to Arthur who looked between him and his offered hand like he'd grown a third head.

"I'm Marlin Keyes,"

"So I don't know you then." Merlin withdrew his hand, and resisted the urge to snap back the way he used when he and Arthur knew each other. The man could be vindictive and Merlin wanted to get away without causing too much trouble.

"No, you don't, I suppose." Fine, see if I help you when your sorry arse is about bite the dust again.

"Yet you called me 'mate'."

"My mistake I suppose. I couldn't be friends with such an ass."

Merlin turned around and walked away, making sure that Morris had had ample time to run away.

"Nor I with someone so stupid."

Merlin stopped, then willed himself to keep walking.

"Tell me, Marlin, do you know what the disciplinary council room looks like?"

Merlin rolled his eyes. The man always had to have the last word.

"No."

Arthur let out an amused laugh, and Merlin turned to face him, arms crossed over his chest.

"Do you want some help finding your way there?"

There it was, that stupid, obnoxious, prattish smile that Merlin hated and missed so much.

"I wouldn't if I were you." Merlin warned him. What? Are you gonna throw a spell at him? Are you mental? In the middle of the courtyard no less? Arthur approached, un-intimidated by his warning.

"What? What are you going to do, Marlin?" Arthur's maddening way of talking down to him hadn't changed at all and Merlin found himself irked by the seedling in front of him that possessed Arthur's face but as of yet had not shown him the wit that Arthur was so famous for even today. Because of course King Arthur was famous some 500 years later, but so was Merlin. It was Gaius' texts that detailed the quests of himself and Arthur that had made them so famous so many centuries later, though people still postulated whether it was history or myth. The entire courtyard now watched them and Merlin was frustrated that he had accomplished being the exact opposite of inconspicuous.

"You have no idea."

Arthur positively howled with laughter, the wind ruffling the hair on his head and jersey rustling from the strength of the gale.

"Really? Then be my guest Marlin." Arthur held his arms wide open, daring Merlin to do something.

He really does piss me off. I waited more than 500 bloody years for this arse.

Arthur approached Merlin again, and by now, the warlock was seething from anger held down for too long and suddenly before Merlin knew what he was doing, he lashed out at the young man who ducked and grabbed the offending limb, wrenching it behind Merlin's back and twisting it for good measure. The blonde King spoke in his ear, voice maddeningly smug,

"I could have you expelled for that." It was almost conversational, the way Arthur said it, not like the threat it actually was.

"Who do you think you are? The Head Master?" Merlin retorted, annoyed that 5 centuries later, he'd still fallen for the same trick.

"No." The arm gripping Merlin's twisted it tighter. "I'm his son. Arthur."

Because of course he was.

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A/N: HELLO MY LOVELIES. Another wonderful day in fanfiction and I bring to you the next chapter of my story! I would love if you would so kindly bestow upon my story a review or two. Thanks for reading and enjoy!