DISCLAIMER: IDNOM(BIWID)

Thanks to all the people who favourited and followed, and sorry this took so long. I'm going to update this fanfic whenever I get insiration, rather than every week or so, so that there's no really bad ones that just make me want to cringe. Oh, and there are numerous references in here. Kudos to you if you can spot them all.

So enjoy! (And review?)

If he was honest, Merlin was tired of waiting.

The first thousand years were the worst and the second thousand, they were the worst too. The third thousand years he didn't enjoy at all. After that he went into a bit of a decline.

Eventually, after a couple of millennia waiting, he'd got tired of hanging around for some dead guy who, if he was being truthful, had been a bit of a prat and obviously wasn't turning up any time soon, and had decided to go and see the world.

Or rather, the worlds.

Humanity had developed space travel - some genius named Scott had engineered something that seemed to Merlin to be some kind of cross between education and witchcraft. But it worked, and that was what mattered. So Merlin had left the village where he'd been living for the past hundred or so years and, having all ready seen the entirety of planet earth, had booked the first flight to Mars. He'd worked his way out - one planet at a time - and soon enough he'd seen the entire galaxy.

(He also had enough frequent flyer points to jet him anywhere, but that was another matter.)

Then, one day, about three hundred years after the invention of space flight, he'd decided to fake his age and get himself adopted. The de-ageing spell hadn't been hard, and so cute little three year old Jethro had soon been taken in by a very nice couple who had treated him well and liked to travel. But, obviously, Merlin could not make anything easy for anyone, no matter how nice, and had decided to become an awkward, rebellious teenager. And a goth.

If only Arthur could see him now - spiked hair, black nails, black clothing, skinny jeans, studded cuffs... it was a good job he hadn't dressed like this in Camelot - he would have been lynched.

But the older Merlin got, the more childish he got, and so when his 'parents' (as he laughingly called them. After all, they were a good few million years younger than him) dragged him to some diamond holiday planet named Midnight, he played his part. He'd whined, he'd moaned, he'd made annoying sarcastic comments. He'd been bored.

Until the tour shuttle had mysteriously broken down and the mysterious guy in the blue suit who seemed weirdly curious about everyone had done some smart stuff and put on some specs, that was. After a few choice comments ('We've broken down - in the middle of nowhere!') things had got decidedly more interesting. Then the hostess had shot herself out into the vacuum along with the crazy lady who'd been possessed and normality had been restored. Well, as much as it could be when you were an immortal wizard who was still waiting for someone to give him a straight answer about his 'destiny'.

But then, inevitably, they'd been rescued and Merlin had had to go back to the mindnumbing job of waiting for King Prat. He'd much rather have started hanging round with the Doctor, but he'd vworped off in some tiny box with some ginger girl.

Merlin had liked the Doctor - something to do with the eyes. They were old eyes, old eyes on a young face, much like himself. Maybe, one day, they'd meet again, and they could sit down and talk together.

One day.