Chapter 3: The Physician's Chamber

(Past)

"Merlin – what have you done now?"

"It wasn't me," Merlin protested, though he couldn't help grinning – and winking hard to deny involuntary tears. The relief of trust given unconditionally was a welcome comfort he hadn't even realized he'd been missing all day. "Honestly. It was Morgana."

Gaius straightened, laying his reading-glass down in the pages of his book. "Morgana? You found her, then, on this patrol? What did she do? Is anyone hurt?"

"No one's hurt," Merlin reassured him, pushing away from the closed door to venture further into the room. The candle on Gaius' desk meant the old man could see his book clearly, but the rest of the chamber would be fairly dim. "We haven't found her – and it's nothing she's done yet. It's something she's going to do…"

With each step he took, he watched Gaius' demeanor shift in absorbing the changes in Merlin's person, incompletely glimpsed and not fully comprehended.

"In about ten years' time," Merlin finished, halting across the desk from his old friend. "It was a spell of exchange. Ten years from now Morgana will summon your Merlin from today, replacing her with me."

"Indeed," was all Gaius said, as he rose from his chair, stern and concerned again. "So you mean…"

"I'm still Merlin," he said lightly. "Just not… your Merlin."

"You are… the man my boy will grow into, someday," Gaius said, with a new trace of reserve. Understandable, considering the circumstances, but Merlin still felt it.

"Yes," he answered.

The old physician moved out from behind the desk, scrutinizing him anew – probably seeing more differences than just the beard and the clothes. He reached up to take Merlin's face in his hands, searching his eyes – which Merlin allowed, hoping Gaius would find what he looked for, a consolation of his own.

"The king knows you," he said, with an intensity that wavered with age and emotion, but held. "He has… rewarded you?"

"The way Arthur always rewards me," Merlin answered, having to smile against the old man's fingers. "With more work – and more responsibilities. So he can accuse me of shirking them – it pleases him best to note my imperfections. Makes his own less noticeable, I think."

Gaius made an odd choked sound, like he'd begun to laugh and swallowed it by mistake instead. "Oh, my dear boy," he said, releasing Merlin's face – but only to step closer and fold him in a proper, tight embrace. "Oh, bless you… dear boy, well done."

Merlin was happy to be an irresponsible adolescent again for just a moment, clinging to Gaius and inhaling the muted pungency of herbs from the shoulder of his robe. He didn't even know why he was being told well done, but it felt good again from this man, someone he'd striven to impress and often despaired of so doing – even more than Arthur. Arthur had become a lot easier to impress in the last ten years than in the half dozen or so preceding, since he knew of the magic – since he accepted it; since he welcomed it – but Gaius had always known the magic.

"Are you sure you're all right?" Gaius said eventually, gripping his shoulders to lean him away. "Are you hungry? Do you want some-"

"Water, please, before anything else," Merlin said, twisting away to eye the bucket and dipper on the table in the corner.

"Hm. You do smell like you've been ill," Gaius observed, moving to the pantry cabinet.

Merlin snorted, arriving at the table and relishing the feeling of cool water in his mouth – slightly stale and slightly woody from resting in its container. All day… since he'd carried it up this morning before the patrol left the citadel.

Ten years ago. He grimaced, rinsing his teeth with another mouthful.

"You said Morgana performed a spell of exchange?" Gaius asked, setting out bread and cheese and another dish – congealed beans, Merlin discovered when he moved the cloth covering it. "She's grown more powerful, then, to manage that."

Merlin heard a hint of criticism, and didn't take it personally as he stepped over the bench and seated himself, setting down the horn cup half-full of water and reaching to pull wrapped lumps of bread and cheese closer. "She has," he admitted, beginning to tear and cram bites. "But this one, it'll drain her magic and energy for most of the week."

"Then why do it?" the old man wondered leadingly.

So Merlin told him. A summary of what Morgana had revealed to his younger self when they'd finally come face to face, of her motives and intentions, gloating over her own ingenuity and refusing to consider there were any flaws, even when he'd said to her… what had he said to her… oh, it was ten years ago, for him. Something about how his friends had assured him, this had happened before – and therefore couldn't succeed. Something about, why didn't she stop trying to kill him – stop trying to kill Arthur – and leave them alone so they could leave her alone, somewhere far distant and not interfering with Camelot or their allies. He'd been ready to let her retreat; it was almost ironic.

"Did you kill her?"

Merlin stopped, his next bite still half-attached to the diminished loaf between his hands. He met Gaius' eyes with a troubled knot of tension between his brows. "I didn't want to talk about it, when I came back," he said. "I told everyone I'd defeated her, because it was true and then they'd know, it was over – it would be over… And Arthur didn't ask for details."

Gaius said nothing, just slid his fingers between each other, and looked at him over them.

"I already killed his father. And his uncle," Merlin added. "Morgana was… my friend. And Gwen's. Arthur's sister." Those feelings were a long time ago, but never forgotten – and of course much closer, when he'd been ten years younger. "It was… a shock, for me to see her, what she'd become in ten years' time."

Gaius made a noncommittal sound. "I suppose then we're due for a decade of relative peace until she decides she must do this thing?"

Merlin took the bite of bread, and continued eating. "Mm. No. It's been on and off – whenever she thinks she's got a plan that will work. Another ally, another unexpected bit of magic to turn against us."

"A spell of exchange is not just a bit, Merlin," Gaius admonished.

"No. Nor any of the things she's tried." Merlin swallowed two more mouthfuls of water and began to think about what he'd need to take when he left Gaius' chambers – that herb-rack, in particular, though he wasn't sitting close enough to identify each green clump drying upside down.

"Was there never a chance to defeat her without waiting ten years for her to summon the boy you'd been?" Gaius asked, with a hint of stern reproach.

Merlin sighed. "Do you mean, did we just sit back and wait because we knew what would happen, when it would happen, and because we believed we couldn't succeed beforehand? No, Gaius. I'll not tell you the stories, but – things she's done, things she's tried… there were times when I wanted to… And I would have, if I could have. If I hadn't… been stopped."

A confession to murderous impulses in the heat of the moment, in the frustration of battle and loss and the failure in every triumph, that it was not the last triumph.

I wanted to tear her heart from her chest with my bare hands. Rip her eyes out, squeeze her throat til she stopped taunting and feared us. Every time we found the dead – once her own man, the renegade druid she'd used to test the efficacy of that potion on… That once when she'd stolen Lord Drihten's infant son to use noble blood for her black magic… Every time a citizen of Camelot raised an exhausted, tear-stained face to us to ask why?...

"I tried to end her," he concluded in a low voice. "I'm sure Arthur could tell you the same – my Arthur. I knew there were times when he fully intended to."

The rage on the king's bearded face as he raised the named sword and flung it across the ruined keep, trusting the direction of its killing edge to Merlin, who'd been half-trapped in the rubble and half-blind with the dust of the collapse. Merlin had never admitted to Arthur that there were times he genuinely found his king fearsome.

And she'd laughed and traveled, disappearing in a cloud of gray wisps. Like she always did. Damn that bloody spell.

Once he'd tried to follow her through it, Arthur's cry of Merlin, no! ringing through his ears. It was like diving through a crack in the earth – mottled rock shooting past him, outcroppings looming nearly too fast to be avoided, always the sensation that the crevasse would narrow to nothing, catching him in a crushing grip – was he going downward, still, or shooting upward like an arrow. Or sideways.

And Kilgarrah had caught him in a crushing grip, panting in great bellows-breaths, landing heavily exhausted… Don't you ever do that again. Too shaken even to call Merlin names or use fancy language to imply his stupidity. They'd been in the snow in the top of a mountain range not even located on any of Arthur's maps; Morgana nowhere for leagues. By the time they'd gotten back to Camelot, Arthur was livid enough to throttle Merlin himself, and made him swear… something tedious, he was sure.

"Hm. So it won't be possible to avert this time switch," Gaius said slowly. "We must let it… play itself out."

"We've tried to change some things," Merlin said. "It's never worked. Usually we only realize after something's happened, and connections are made."

"So my boy will come home in a week's time," Gaius checked, "with blood on his hands and death on his conscience."

"More or less," Merlin admitted wryly.

"And you know this because it already happened to you ten years ago." Gaius' brow rose thoughtfully. "Did Morgana's spell deteriorate after that length of time, or did she place the limit deliberately, thinking a week would be sufficient time for her to-"

"Kill me? Well, younger-me."

"If she succeeded, what would happen to you, here and now?" Gaius wondered, disturbed.

"No, it's not…" Merlin sighed. "Because I'm here, we know she won't succeed, yeah?"

"If you say so." Gaius was unconvinced, which Merlin found disconcerting. His old mentor had always been so… ah. That's because when Gaius reassured him of this very thing, he'd already returned to say, Morgana didn't succeed. Gaius was doubtful now because… Merlin hadn't come back yet. His younger self, anyway.

"No, I don't think Morgana gave any thought at all to the possibility of a switch back," he said. "Or what it would mean to have me at this age, in Camelot now. But while your Merlin is there dealing with Morgana, I'm here… to make sure he's back where he belongs in a week."

"Ah," Gaius said, leaning back contemplatively. "That's complicated magic, Merlin, and most sorcerers don't ever-"

"I know, but I already have," Merlin countered. "I already do. I don't think I ever told you before, but – there were times when I felt time, passing like a stream through my fingers, and I could catch it enough to slow it. Here in this very room when we first met, actually – I slowed your fall from the balcony so I could figure out that I needed to pull your bed beneath you for you to land on."

Gaius stared at him, and Merlin felt like he'd done something wrong – or something right that should have been leagues beyond his ability.

"In Ealdor? against the bandits?" he ventured. "I'm really not agile enough to actually dodge arrows, I just… slowed them down so I could duck. And jump out of the way…"

"Merlin, you…" Gaius at a loss for words was rare, and always made Merlin uncomfortable. Never mind the couple-dozen times he'd done it since then, in that case.

"Yes," he said, swinging one leg over the bench in preparation to rise. "But I need your help."

"Of course. Anything I can-"

"Good," Merlin said, pushing to his feet and going first to the drying rack of herbs beside the door. Yes, just as he'd hoped – here were wormwood and calendula and valerian. "Feverfew?"

"I've got a cupful of the seeds waiting for a fall planting," Gaius told him, pointing him to another cupboard.

That way he'd have access to fresh plantings through the winter season. Merlin took three stalks of the wormwood and carefully detached three of the dried burgundy-orange blossoms of the calendula. Valerian was a root, and Merlin needed only a slice of it anyway – and then enough of the feverfew seeds to cup in his palm.

"Can you spare a bowl or two? I need three large and three smaller ones, preferably wood but clay will do also – that way I don't have to take them from the kitchen because the smaller ones at least I won't be giving back…"

"I have these dishes," Gaius answered, and Merlin heard him rummaging in the pantry-cupboard. "Our two soup-bowls? And this larger one – otherwise I have only stoneware – except for that cracked clay pot."

"Keep the stoneware, it'll be too heavy," Merlin decided, wrapping his selections in the cheesecloth Gaius kept for straining infusions, the feverfew seeds in their own separate twist. "I'll take the soup-bowls and the larger one – put it in that cloth laundry-bag, please? Arthur will be pleased to replace them for you. Next week."

"What else?" Gaius asked.

"Some things from the palace garden, I think, but that can wait, for now."

"Aren't you going to tell me about this spell of exchange you plan to duplicate?" the old man questioned.

Merlin looked over his shoulder to find Gaius scrutinizing him again, as if he could read any increase of Merlin's knowledge or skill or prudence in his new clothes.

"From what I know of time-magic, it can be very dangerous if handled incorrectly – as you well remember." Gaius paused as if slightly disconcerted, then added, "That is, if you remember being almost executed as an eighty-year-old man when Gwen was accused of enchanting Arthur. You were always stuck in that form, without the potion I brewed for you."

"Who could forget?" Merlin was not eager to reach eighty – and in fact was relieved that particular subterfuge was no longer necessary to hide his identity from enemies or friends.

Ironic, that, under the circumstances. When his friends refused to recognize an older version of himself even when he told the truth…

"What other herbs are you taking?"

Gaius would know their magical and medicinal properties and their esoteric connections, but without the faelg…

"Do you know an incantation? If you tell me where you found it, I could-"

"Gaius," Merlin said gently. "I can't tell you."

The old man straightened, and his brow took on an intimidating arch. "And why not?"

Merlin smiled. "It was days – weeks – months, that you and I spent researching this very ritual, studying and changing, arguing and starting over, when I was young and came back from the future. And Arthur knew – the magic, and this task I had left to do someday. It was a great excuse to get out of any number of things he wanted me for…"

Council meetings. Wedding plans. Appointments with the tailor. Summons to answer yet another question that had occurred to the young king about various situations in their shared past that he'd been revisiting with the light of Merlin's secret to guide him… into murky places with uncertain footing.

"Yes, but two minds are better than one, and if there is any flaw in your preparation-" Gaius argued.

"You helped me develop it," Merlin reminded him, grinning. "Or at least, you're going to. And honestly, I wouldn't give up even one of those hours, searching for and through any number of books, discussing theory and practice and how hard it was without the ability to experiment. You ran me back and forth to the library, sent me on three separate trips, and one to the-" He stopped himself, and Gaius gave him an expectant look. "If I told you everything now, all that activity won't even be necessary. And I treasured those memories."

"Indeed," Gaius uttered. "And how do you know that you didn't tell me every detail, and I made you go through all the motions of research and study simply to be sure. Or to give you that excuse to be separate from Arthur for a few hours. Or for my own private amusement?"

Merlin gaped at the old man, disconcerted. What if he had? And Gaius just never told him. Something learned through experience rather than lecture is better learned and longer retained, the old man had taught him.

"You," he said. "You will not trick me like that, Gaius. If I have to search and study, so do you."

And that sent both eyebrows up. Merlin grinned unrepentantly, scooping up the wrapped greenery.

As he passed the table, where Gaius was stuffing a blanket-roll and a water-skin into the cloth bag, he reached to tuck his packet into the protection of the nesting bowls. Ordinary, but oh-so-extraordinary when organized upon the faelg pattern – and then the elements – and then the incantation…

"Merlin," Gaius said, but he didn't slow. Up the three steps at once into the room that used to be his – that still was, for a few more years, though by choice rather than appointment.

A clean shirt – his oldest one, needed washing and mending and he couldn't remember now if he'd missed it, coming back in a week as a younger man. And there – that neckerchief that also needed washing because Arthur had tossed his last gauntlet for Merlin to carry and his arms were already full of armor and he'd tried to catch the piece on the top of the pile, and it missed and hit his nose. And it had bled all over.

Perfect.

He wrapped it to keep the dried brown bloodstains to the inside of the fabric, and rolled his spare shirt around the neckerchief – then paused in the space as a wave of something not unlike homesickness passed over him.

Clothes on the floor… and a pair of Arthur's boots. The heel of one needed mending and it came to him, the memory of his hope that Arthur would forget that he'd given them to Merlin so he could keep and wear them and claim, but you gave them to me, just to see that look on the king's face, a mix of consternation and confusion. And then whether he'd demand his property back and threaten to have Merlin punished as a thief, or dismiss the boots as worthless and therefore irrelevant if Merlin kept them…

Merlin swallowed, and turned.

The bed was unmade. Thin short blanket over thin bare mattress and he slept like the dead most nights. Physical exhaustion would do that – mental exhaustion, not so much. His new bed – which he always made up in the morning, and rarely with magic – was softer and deeper and warmer. Smooth sheets and an embroidered coverlet rather than just a wool blanket, but he lay awake in it most nights – when he first lay down to seek sleep, or when he woke before dawn and couldn't find a few more hours… He wondered if Arthur could tell, now, when he'd had a bad night. Merlin could always tell it on him.

The work-table in the corner covered with scattered scraps of parchment. Drops of wax and blotches of ink, and the twine tacked to the wall held more such notes and sketches.

Those were all – all? – copied with meticulous artistry into his book, now. Not the book Gaius had given him – under the floorboard there and even without knowing that, he could sense it, so faintly, years of dust and magic in the fingerprints invisible upon its pages, his own and Gaius' among them – but his own. New, and only half-finished…

He was struck suddenly with the temptation of dipping the raggedy quill in the watered-ink and leaving himself a note, even if he didn't remember finding such a thing. An experiment in change he couldn't always resist – or maybe he had written it, and it had fallen to the floor to be swept up with the clutter… He hadn't often swept this room, but a large piece would catch his attention. Or maybe Gaius would find it and keep it from his younger self for reasons unknown…

Hey… Arthur didn't believe me. When it's your turn, maybe try to… He didn't have the time to think what Arthur might respond cooperatively to.

"Merlin?" Gaius called from the main chamber.

Shrugging, he turned and trotted down the stairs, back to Gaius' side. "Food please?" he asked, stuffing the shirt-and-kerchief bundle carefully between the packet of herbs and the side of the cloth bag for padding. "Whatever you have – whatever you can spare and I can carry easily…"

Gaius paused half-turned to the cupboard. "Carry?" he questioned. "Surely you don't intend to go anywhere tonight? It's past midnight!"

"And I can't stay," Merlin said regretfully. "Arthur ordered me to the cells-" Gaius startled, and he hastened to explain. "When the spell of exchange was enacted, it was obvious magic. We were both in the Valley of the Fallen Kings on the same day of the year, but not in precisely the same place. Arthur's young servant vanished off the back of the horse at Arthur's side, and all they found was me, a little ways away."

"Why didn't you just-"

"Explain who I was and what happened?" Merlin said with exasperation. "I did. Believe me, I tried. Arthur assumed it was an attack, and I was responsible, and since he can't find… younger me…"

"He's going to want to question you," Gaius concluded, abandoning the pantry cabinet to lean heavily on the table. "Is that why no one's come to tell me anything."

"It's likely the patrol was late getting back, too," Merlin said, rounding the table to his side. "Arthur was… upset. He was going to keep searching."

"Searching fruitlessly." Gaius sighed, then realized, "And if he doesn't believe you are Merlin, he'll treat you as an enemy."

"An enemy with relevant and valuable information on the whereabouts and condition of his servant," Merlin pointed out. The larder was a bit bare – a heel of bread the size of his fist, two apples, and a jar that was probably jellied plums. "Don't worry. He won't hurt me."

"As optimistic as ever, I see," the old man grumbled. "Merlin, wouldn't it be better to tell the king some tale of… being coerced by an enemy, and repenting your part in it, and offering to reverse the spell? Aside from the near-execution, it did work for your eighty-year-old self to assume a disparate identity."

"I can't do that, Gaius." Merlin packed one of the apples and the heel of bread carefully into the cloth bag – then tucked one of Gaius' short-bladed knives down inside where it would do no harm to anything inside or out.

"Whyever not?" Gaius leaned over to palm the second apple and push it inside the bag's mouth before Merlin tightened the strings.

A smile pulled at one side of his mouth. "I… made him a promise. I'd never lie to him again. Never mislead him, or keep information from him or refuse him an answer, or… in any way hinder him from his right and responsibility, to decide. To rule. And even if he hasn't heard it yet – I've given my word, and I'll keep it."

"Ah, Merlin." Understanding and sympathy softened Gaius' face, and he put his hand on Merlin's shoulder. "Well, so be it. I trust you've learned to look after yourself a bit better than you used to…"

"Of course," Merlin said, accepting the tacit rebuke.

"Come see me before the end of your week. You said you needed some things from the kitchen gardens? I can get those things for you without needing to steal them-"

"It's not stealing," Merlin protested. "I'm allowed to have anything I like from the kitchens now-"

"Not now," Gaius clarified. "And you don't need to take the risk. And don't try to come all the way up here as long as they're looking for you-"

The Clang! of the alarm bell beginning to ring out startled them both. Time to go…

"You know my rounds," Gaius reminded him swiftly. "Come find me in the lower town – I can have what you need with me. Maybe another bowl or two."

"All right," Merlin relented. "If you could get caroh-fruit – just the seeds, really – meadow-sawge, and fennel."

"Root or stalk?" Gaius said.

"Both, if you can manage." The root was magical, but both were also edible. Merlin positioned the strings of the cloth bag over his shoulder so it rested comfortably between his shoulder-blades. "Gaius… thank you. Again. You don't know how much it means to me-"

The old man harrumphed away his thanks – how could he understand the depth of Merlin's feelings, though? Not without knowing what Merlin knew… and he'd never tell.

Instead Gaius embraced Merlin again, patting his shoulder in a paternal way that had tears springing to his eyes. "Just be careful, my boy."

"I have learned that as well," Merlin tried to tell him. Tried to grin. He was reluctant to leave – but reluctant to see Gaius in trouble if he was caught here.

The slam of the door into the wall as it was shoved violently open startled them both again.

It was Arthur.

..…*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

(Future)

Merlin had no time to process the shock and idea of children, at the seaside or otherwise– whose children, Arthur and Gwen's? – because the king was pushing open the door of the physician's chamber and Merlin couldn't help but follow him inside.

It was different here, too. At a glance, everything was neater and cleaner – tabletops organized, shelves and cupboards subtly reflecting candlelight glow from surfaces that were polished rather than dusty. Furniture shifted, arranged, replaced with better, newer, nicer pieces.

And he understood why instantly, as the round woman standing with her back to the door turned and caught his recognition also.

Apron over dark green dress and butter-cream blouse. Round wrinkled face like the last sweet apple of fall, pink-cheeked and bright-eyed and half again as much gray in the braid over her shoulder.

"Alice!" Merlin exclaimed gladly.

But of course – if Arthur had repealed the ban on magic – since Arthur had lifted Gwen's sentence of exile, and Gwaine's and Lancelot's – surely he'd be open to an appeal for mercy in Alice's case.

Surprise shifted to understanding in an instant in Alice's face. Behind her and the table she'd been facing stood two older children with curious, expectant expressions; one of them blurted, "Bloody hell, it's him! He's barely older than we are!"

The other – the girl – shushed him.

They were of a similar height, maybe a few years younger than he'd been walking into Camelot the very first time – therefore, no one he immediately recognized as having been children in his own time. They didn't look dissimilar, hair like sun-glare on a wheat field, though the boy's was a shock of springy curls and the girl's was pulled behind her head and hidden by a blue scarf but for the inches that framed her face. Her apron wasn't clean – his smock was worse – but they were healthy, strong and upright, and their clothes of decent merchant-class quality.

Assistants, then, and not patients?

"Language, Tareth," the king admonished, and the boy turned a fiery red to the roots of his fair hair.

"Yes sire sorry sire," he mumbled. The girl was staring open-mouthed at Merlin, but the corners were slowly drawing upward into a wide grin.

"Oh dear, it's happened," Alice said, wiping her hands on a flour-sack towel and discarding it before approaching Merlin where his feet had left him. "Merlin. Are you all right? You were ill initially, weren't you – were you able to eat a little, and have you had plenty of water?"

He stared at her, unable to laugh, or answer. Though of course she would know about this spell of exchange also – how odd to continue meeting people who had anticipated this world-inside-out occurrence that was still tumbling him stomach-over-brain.

"We had travel rations," the king told her. "Though not much. If I send Daeg to the kitchens yet tonight, should I have him bring something here for you?"

"How do you feel, Merlin?" Alice said to him, by way of answering the king, and he was not used to having his well-being put before Arthur's whims. "Are you hungry? You could eat?"

"Yeah," he managed. "Maybe."

"He looks like he needs to," the boy – Tareth – whispered to the girl.

She responded, ducking her head closer to his without taking her eyes off Merlin. "He looks like he needs to sit down."

Merlin felt his own face heating, and Alice whirled on them. "Now it's time you two were off home."

"But, Alice, we could still finish the-" the girl started, but it was the king who interrupted, resting on one hip to let his leg swing, on the corner table beside the water bucket with his back to the herb-drying rack.

"We're back now, which means your uncle will be home before you are, and what will he have to say about that?"

The girl glanced at her brother, biting her lip. Tareth snorted and tossed his eyes to the ceiling in affected unconcern.

"Off you go," Alice ordered. "And I don't want to see either of you a moment before midmorning, tomorrow."

"Just because he's here…" Tareth complained.

The girl watched Merlin as she pushed her brother past – one dimple in her smile – and she glanced back over her shoulder as they passed the threshold. There were two braids under the blue scarf, but tied off as one.

"He was skinny when he was young!"

"He still is skinny, dungbrain."

The king leaned to close the door with one hand, and Merlin stood awkward under Alice's gaze, knowing they'd heard the comments as well. Arthur always teased – and he'd call his friend fat in return, like they should ever be opposites.

"Come and sit down," Alice invited him, gesturing to the bench by the table – which now faced two armchairs padded with cushions rather than a second bench. "His Majesty has told you what's happened, hasn't he?"

"Um," Merlin said, feeling uncoordinated, and obeying slowly. "Yes? Where's – where's Gaius?"

Alice stopped, cocking her head at him like a plump sparrow, then looked back at the king in the corner. Merlin shifted to face him, too.

"He's in the vaults," the king said readily – kindly. "We did talk about if he wanted to be on the hill with Gwen's father – or another hill somewhere else. But in the end, we decided it was best for him to rest here, beneath his home."

Merlin was lost in misapprehension.

Alice ventured, "Gaius… isn't with us any longer, Merlin. He's gone… a couple of years ago, now."

He stared at her while the world disappeared around them, draining away and he was helpless, motionless. First the colors, bleaching at the edge of his vision – then the shapes – then the sensation of sound and feeling.

She spoke to him, but her face was a round blur and her words oddly elongated. The sparrow-tilt of her head angled further and further until –

Gaius was dead. Gaius was dead?

Someone flung rough arms around his chest, squeezing and lifting him while his legs sank right down into the floor. Someone barked roughly in his ear, "Just get the chair under him!"

He blinked, and moisture stung his cheeks, but Alice's face was clear and upright again, as his body sagged in the chair, someone's hand pinning his shoulder in place.

"I'm very sorry," she said gently. "You didn't realize. You expected him…"

"What?" the king exclaimed, and Merlin's neck creaked to see Arthur standing over him, hand on his hip just next the hilt of the sword, frowning. "When it happened, you said it wasn't unexpected. You said, he was already old, and neither of you ever thought he was going to live the full ten years til this happened."

Merlin blinked, and two more tears burned his face. He wasn't breathing again.

When things happened. When magic things happened – things he didn't understand, things that were frightening and threatening and squarely on his own shoulders to fix before people died – before more people died – before the kingdom collapsed… Fast and safe and secret, and mistakes meant death, too. When things happened, Gaius was there. Gaius was immovable, unchangeable, wise and knowledgeable and cautious – pulling him back, encouraging him forward, protecting him and depending on him and supporting him, picking him up and dusting him off. Listening and advising – waiting up for Merlin to get home, keeping his dinner hot and their chambers shared. Never alone… never alone…

The king continued, covering consternation with accusation, "You said it didn't come as a shock, that you knew-"

"Arthur, stop!" Alice said sharply, watching Merlin.

"What?" the king said heatedly.

"This is why he said that. This moment is why he wasn't surprised when Gaius… left us. And he said those things to comfort you."

Silence.

Merlin still wasn't breathing, though his ribs and lungs disagreed with that assessment.

Then the king said roughly, "Dammit, Merlin."

And abruptly he whirled and stalked out, slamming the door behind him. Merlin flinched, and then wondered why he'd done so.

Alice's knees cracked as she knelt before him, and he caught the warm scent of calendula about her. "I'm sorry," she whispered, reaching to touch him, to put her hand over his. "I'm so sorry…"

"I don't want to know," he mumbled. "I don't want to know… any more."

"You've eaten a little and had water," she said, her voice quietly soothing. "Maybe you should rest now, and have some food later when you wake? Would that be best – just to retire to your room and be alone for a little while to think and sleep? The world will look brighter in the morning."

He looked at her, dully aware that if Gaius had said the same thing, he would've teased the old man for stating the obvious like that could give hope.

But there was nothing left. Maybe Alice was familiar with his older self, but while he remembered her, they hadn't spent a great deal of time together, long ago when she'd been in Camelot for a few days of Uther's reign.

"Yeah," he said hoarsely. Gwen wasn't here, gone to the coast with the children. Gwaine evidently didn't live in the barracks anymore, so Merlin had no idea where to find him, even if he wanted to wander the lower town at night.

Round-lanterns. That couldn't be their real name…

His mother wasn't here either. And anyway she'd be ten years older, too – he didn't think he could bear that. If her brown hairs were gray and her gray hairs white, if her face sagged in wrinkles, if her bones stood out and her footing faltered…

He lurched to his feet, and Alice used the tabletop for balance in pushing herself upright. He kicked the leg in trying to move past it, and mumbled, "Sorry."

"It's fine, Merlin." She pushed the table two inches to its original position.

He headed for the three stairs up – blindly, unstable, and had his hand on the door when she interrupted.

"Ah. Merlin?"

He leaned on the door frame, letting his hand swing inward with the latch, and didn't quite meet her eyes.

"Mm," she said. "Nothing. Never mind. Good night."

He couldn't say it back. He managed another mumble and closed himself into the cool dark of his room.

Forgot a candle. Usually he'd light one with magic. Not tonight.

Tearing off his jacket, he sat on the edge of the indistinct shape of the bed – still in the far corner, under the window, but it was softer. It was bigger. He pulled his boots off and turned to crawl toward the pillows, completely and utterly finished dealing with this particular magic ordeal.

He didn't make it as far as the pillows, sinking down face-first, sprawled over the mattress. His skin told him, patchwork quilt. That was new.

His nose told him, scented. Lavender or lemon-grass… It smelled feminine.

It wasn't even his room anymore, was it? It wasn't even Gaius' room anymore. He'd thoughtlessly taken Alice's accommodations, and… he was lost.

I don't belong here. I want to go…

Two more tears soaked the fresh-smelling quilt… and then he slept.

…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

(Past)

Arthur was still in chainmail, smudged and weary-looking. Without looking away from the two of them, he slammed the door behind himself again – left-handed, as his sword was already bared in his right. Carried that way because of the alarm for an escaped prisoner – and he had guessed correctly where his prisoner would be.

"You see," Merin said softly, hoping – hoping. "You were right. This is the first place I would come."

Arthur's expression was astonishment – and something almost like recognition to take in the sight of him and Gaius together glinted briefly – before fury overtook his expression and bearing.

"Get back!" he spat in a low, dangerous voice. The flick of his sword tip indicated an order for each of them to move away from the other. "And you – turn your back to me and lift your hands in the air. Slowly. And no magic, if you value your life."

Merlin sighed. We didn't make it easy for you, huh? Royal we.

"Sire," Gaius said began carefully. "If you'll just take a moment to consider-"

"His first step would be to convince you," Arthur continued, all menacing intent. The point of his weapon never wavered as he eased forward, taut and lithe at the same time. "To enchant you, because if you say we should believe him-"

"I haven't enchanted anyone," Merlin said patiently, feeling instincts react to the threat as he settled and balanced his own weight in response to Arthur's approach – and he'd never done that, never. He'd never felt genuinely threatened by his friend, prince or king. Not any of the handful of times Arthur had been enchanted. "I told you, the magic you saw in the forest today was performed by someone else. Not me. A spell of exchange. Your manservant, for me."

Arthur shifted another step forward, as deadly a predator as Merlin had ever come across. "Magic performed by Morgana. And… wherever you come from, that's where Merlin is, now."

"Yes, Arthur, just like I told you." Merlin gave a hard sigh of annoyance.

"But you're not going to stay and tell us everything we need to find him. You're packing," Arthur said, speaking too low and too smooth, and Merlin realized.

He was being treated as a dangerous enemy, himself. Magic, and an uncertainty. Arthur was pacifying him til he was in a position to strike a decisive blow.

Incarceration, not execution, he had to believe.

"I can't do anything for your Merlin locked up here," Merlin replied, edging sideways to keep the table between them. "And if you won't believe me anyway…"

"Where is Morgana these days?" Arthur asked, almost conversationally. His eyes were ice, and a muscle in his jaw twitched. The sword was silent menace between them.

"I don't know," Merlin said honestly, the question taking him a bit by surprise. "Where she is now." To his knowledge, they had never discovered where she'd gone or what she'd done, after fleeing Camelot injured.

"Liar," the king growled. "You just said. Morgana's spell. Switched you and Merlin. So she has him, wherever you were."

Well, that's a logical thought, if you didn't allow for the element of time rather than space.

"She doesn't have him yet," Merlin said. Also honestly, but maybe he shouldn't have said it.

Arthur's eyes narrowed. "If you are as willing to help as you claim – turn your back and lift your hands and surrender. Gaius, back up."

"I am the only one who can bring your servant back," Merlin told him, stopping in place – but he had no intention of surrendering to Arthur's dubious treatment of a lying ally of his plotting half-sister. "But there are things I need to get and places I need to go – you could come with me, I could show you and explain to you."

Arthur had been there at the Isle, after all, when he'd been brought back… Merlin had no fear for his ten years' younger self. He knew what had happened; it had already happened. Somehow, Arthur was there when the spell was reenacted.

The king made a quick movement with his off-hand – snatching up from the table Merlin's horn-cup of water, which was mostly empty – and flinging it. Not straight at Merlin, slightly to the side away from his own approach, but still grazing his arm and splashing droplets over his sleeve.

A move he knew – but still usually reacted just as Arthur intended. Distracted and glancing away just long enough for Arthur to lunge-

Leading with the sword.

Not to kill. But pain and loss of blood weakened and distracted a sorcerer just as much as anyone else.

Merlin flinched and twisted, gesturing instinctively to replicate Arthur's distraction. The dish of congealed beans took flight, splattering in a gluey mess over half of Arthur's face, down his neck – down his chainmail-

The king made a furious choked sound, delayed only a pair of seconds before pursuing again. Merlin stumbled away, circling to keep the table as a shield between them.

"Merlin!" Gaius called out. "My lord! Please stop this!"

The old man was too close. Arthur wouldn't hurt him, but – Merlin knocked Gaius off his feet, back several paces to the desk chair, that rocked precipitously under his sudden weight.

Arthur swiped at his face to clear his vision, swinging his blade around in an attempt to catch Merlin with the tip. He ducked, spinning away again – tripping over the table leg again – and the shape of the wooden bowl through the cloth of the bag over his shoulder thudded into his spine.

Regardless of what Arthur believed he needed to do, Merlin's task was clear. If he couldn't do it one way, he had to do it another.

Another gesture – and this time it was Arthur stumbling back as the table itself tipped against him. He retreated – Merlin's intent pinned the king to the wall with the tabletop pressing firmly to his chest. The four legs, now horizontal, never wavered.

"I knew it." Arthur's voice trembled with the opposite of fear. "They said you had to have magic to escape your cell. And Merlin doesn't-" For a moment he struggled to breathe – struggled to free himself, pushing against the tabletop. "Merlin can't-"

"Yes, I have magic." Merlin stepped closer, between the table-legs. Arthur didn't stop exerting his strength against his battered wooden prison, but his eyes widened and he inhaled suddenly through furled nostrils, and it hurt.

Merlin had hated Uther Pendragon, at times in the past. For him, that time had been very long ago… But now, again. How he had crippled his own son, out of hatred.

"You have no reason to fear me, Your Majesty," he said deliberately. "But Arthur, for the love of Camelot… grow up."

Arthur inhaled one more time. Then bellowed, "Guards!"

Merlin stepped back. Time to leave… But the familiar words of the traveling spell, round and risky in his mouth like nightshade berries, affecting no more than a disturbance of the air and his balance.

What the hell? That magic had worked without incident dozens of times for him.

The table slid. Arthur heaved – and Merlin fled.

Hand on the lintel to swing his weight around – and there were three guards on the stairs, pounding upward toward him.

"Stanas dennian!" The stone stairs melted to the consistency of cool mud, and the three were instantly ankle-deep. The foremost lurched forward, losing his weapon also with a splat! The one in the rear wind-milled his arms, trying not to fall backward.

Merlin used his momentum to lean into a feet-first downward skid on his backside, careful of his precious burden and the curve of the stair. His action was too abrupt for the three trapped guards to do more than shout and gesture as he slid past, and he was more or less on his feet when he reached the bottom.

He hadn't said goodbye to Gaius.

His shoulder thudded against the side of the doorway at the bottom of the tower stairs, and he was through.

Remembering the protocol for searching for an escaped prisoner, he evaded and avoided with a minimal use of magic, some backtracking and hiding, and a brief panting moment of panic in a dark alcove.

Then it was down the open gallery that bordered the courtyard, shadow to shadow to shadow.

The portcullis was down, the guards doubled and focused inward. The bells were still clanging, the intruder still uncaught, and the longer that lasted, the more likely the prisoner would be to reach the courtyard.

Prisoner with magic.

One whimsical word from Merlin and the braziers in the courtyard blazed up, flames grasping nervously and skittishly at the darkness surrounding, before extinguishing themselves in fear.

Collective gasp. Just too easy, sometimes.

Merlin was a shadow himself, slipping behind the guards, along the wall and under the gate overhang. There was a narrow passageway, hidden behind the wheel apparatus that raised the gate; it led thirty paces within the wall to its other end, hidden in the fold where the angle of the wall shifted to shield the training lawns on the other side.

It was a tighter fit in the chest these days, though that was partially due to the bag over his shoulder. And the knights traveled this passageway armored and armed, when they wanted to get a troop behind any enemy assailing the gates. The roughness of the stone twitched and tugged periodically at the soft fabric of his jacket, but nothing tore and then he was through.

It was quiet when Merlin emerged, gulping for air and damp with exertion and tight quarters. The night was clear, the stars throbbing low and close.

Merlin scrubbed the sleeve of the velvet jacket Arthur had given him over his eyes. Then headed through the anonymous streets, beyond the lower town toward the open clearing where he'd often chosen to meet with magical kin.

He'd be alone, tonight.