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His old guardian was always as good as his word, even after so long.
The sun was low in the sky when Merlin finally returned to Camelot, dragging his feet as if his shoes were filled with lead. As if to mock the warlock's gloom, the dusty streets glowed with a golden radiance as carts and people trundled along, closing up the day's business with a yawn and a laugh. The castle proper grew gracefully out of the centre of the town like a burnished rose, blushing pink in the fading daylight. After all that had happened, the solemn and familiar beauty of the city brought tears to Merlin's eyes. With a weary sigh, he reached up and rapped clumsily on the rickety wooden door of the physician's chambers.
"Come!" was the customary reply.
Taking a moment to arrange his features into something resembling a smile, Merlin put his weight against the creaky door and swung into the workshop. Déja-vu smacked into him like a whirling storm, almost taking his breath away. The room still stood in the same steadfast state of disarray he had left it in, radiating squalor and life as if nothing had ever happened. It even smelled like the past; the sweet and musty odour of a thousand different herbs and poultices. Merlin half-expected Arthur to come marching in behind him, banging loudly on the door and demanding to see his manservant. But of course, even if Gaius's room had withstood change, the world the warlock had known and loved was a very different place.
"Merlin!" cried the physician, standing abruptly from his habitually cluttered bench and striding eagerly towards his ward. As ever, his lined and sagging face was fixed in a welcoming grin, warm as the afternoon sun which streamed through the cloudy windows. "I was starting to wonder when you would arrive, my boy." He added gently, pulling him into a brusque embrace.
"Gaius," Merlin replied over his shoulder, fighting the wet lump that rose and ballooned in his throat.
"Come now," said the old man, releasing him with a half-worried look and patting him affectionately on the collarbone. With a mischievous wink, Gaius turned away and shuffled towards the dining table where his evening meal appeared to be set, enshrouded and hidden from view by a blue, calico cloth. "I promised you I'd have your favourite meal waiting when you returned, and you're yet to make a liar of me."
Flourishing the table cover, he swept it aside to reveal two roughly-hewn, wooden plates, set neatly alongside a roasted chicken that glowed golden-brown in the warm, coppery light. He turned expectantly back to Merlin, eyes twinkling, and nodded at the table.
Merlin gaped silently at his mentor, his face breaking open into his first true smile since he had arrived on the desperate shores of Avalon, all those weeks ago. A weak, wavering and tear-stained grin, admittedly, but a true one all the same. It was both unnatural and relieving at the same time, like cracking open the spine of a new book. Momentarily disconcerted by the sensation, he let it fall.
Merlin moved instinctively to sit in his usual seat, his mind slipping easily into old habits. But something made him stop, almost in mid-stride. "Gaius," he began, incredulous, "it's been over a month…. How did you…?"
The old man chuckled deeply and knowingly under his breath; a short, sharp gurgle of mirth. "Hunith sent word," he explained matter-of-factly. "Did you think I'd learned to read minds, Merlin?"
Merlin nodded curtly and pursed his lips in frustration at the mention of his mother, taking his seat in silence. Gaius watched him calculatingly over the top of his spectacles as the warlock threw up walls of bristling indignation. Catching the younger man's eye, he cocked a wiry eyebrow and was met with a stone-faced glare that dared him to continue.
Gaius was not one to be intimidated by his pupil. "She was right to send you back here, you know," he declared sagely, ignoring Merlin's belligerent glare.
"Was she?" snapped the warlock maliciously, chewing the words and spitting them out with a ferocity that almost surprised even him. "What for, Gaius?" he demanded, voice rising with aggression. "Is there another grand fate that awaits me? Is there someone else I need to bend over backwards to protect? Arthur's gone! My destiny has been fulfilled, apparently! Or maybe I've just failed- but don't worry, Merlin, the Once and Future King will be back, you just hold tight and twiddle your thumbs," Merlin was on his feet now, flecks of gold spinning dangerously in his eyes. Whether they were from the touch of magic or simply a trick of the light, Gaius could not be certain. "So now I'm supposed to just sit around until he returns. And who knows when that will be? I could be here for a thousand years before I find him, Gaius!" Without warning, the wooden plate went skidding across the floor to crash against the wall with a dismal clatter. "I don't have a purpose, anymore, except to wait for him. So what use am I here? What use am I anywhere? " Despair cracked in his voice and Merlin drew a shuddering breath, running his hands viciously through his hair. With a snarl, he kicked the leg of the table, making the crockery jump as if it had been startled. Hissing in pain and frustration, Merlin stalked away to lean against a door-frame, head bowed to rest in the crook of his elbow. Half-breaths, half-sobs caught in his chest, making his shoulders rise and fall in a shallow, uneven rhythm.
Gaius calmly rode out Merlin's storming tirade, hands steepled under his chin and brow creased with concern, with just a dash of dissent. "Merlin," he began soothingly, "that's not true, and you know it. You do have a purpose... at least for the time being."
"What?" the sorcerer snapped, spinning to face his mentor, chin jutting in defiance.
"The future of Camelot is far from settled, my dear boy. You may have lost a friend, but the kingdom has lost her king. With a young queen newly ascended, there are uncertain times ahead, you mark my words. I don't doubt for a second that Gwen will make a strong and just ruler, but there will still be those that wish her ill; her allies must be kept close and counted preciously."
Merlin sighed and leaned his back against the door frame, letting his head fall back against the wood with a dull thump. He crossed his arms snugly across his chest, and looked, unreadably, down his long nose to where Gaius sat.
"When the embargo on magic is lifted, having you at her side will be essential if we are to see a peaceful return of sorcery to the land. After over twenty years of distrust and war, convincing the people that magic is not evil is going to be no easy task." He paused once again while the warlock took in his reasoning, brooding silently. "But if anyone is up to it, it's you, Merlin." Gaius rocked back in his seat and lifted his chin in query, fixing his eyes on his ward's carefully neutral expression. "What do you say?"
Merlin ground his teeth and paced back to the dining table, leaning the palms of his hands on the back of his chair. He stood for a moment, gazing at the floor as the last, feeble rays of sunlight winked over the dusty windowsill. "I'll stay," he declared finally, with sigh of resignation, "for Gwen's sake."
Gaius beamed at him. "I'm glad," he said proudly, though by the glint in his eye Merlin suspected that he had known what his answer would be all along. "Now sit down and eat your dinner, we'll go to the queen in the morning."
Surveying his mentor's twinkling eyes in the fading dusk, the young warlock was struck forcibly by the man's irrepressible optimism. It seemed to Merlin in that moment that Gaius would go on forever, always expecting the best of tomorrow.
But of course, one autumn morning, tomorrow never came. Merlin had woken to find the old man cold in his bedsheets. Gone, silently in the night. The emptiness was oppressive. When he had imagined Gaius' death, Merlin had always thought to weep for the loss of his friend and advisor, the one man he had dared to trust wholeheartedly. But the tears never came. After so much loss, all Merlin could feel was a hollow ache and a numb acceptance of the truth. He began to wonder if he had dried up like an old well, if his heart had been broken so many times that it no longer hurt.
He was wrong. His sorrow would return with the first snow of the winter.
That's right~~ winter is coming! :P
