Author's note: Yeah...long time no update, I know, and publishing another story in the meantime probably had a lot of you fearing that I had completely abandoned this. Nope! It's rolling again. I had to get the Morgana-Merlin confrontation bit out of my system before I could chill out enough to get back to something with more plot. Which, speaking of, this chapter doesn't have a ton of, but it does serve a purpose. Enjoy!
Gaius looked up from the herbs he was grinding to see Merlin enter the chambers in a huff. He slung down his empty basket and began to storm about the room, tossing in odds and ends of the type he might need when preparing camp for his master in the forest.
"Merlin, my boy, what's bothering you so? Surely Arthur isn't dragging you hunting at a time like this."
Merlin laughed, without mirth. "No, it's worse." He offered nothing further, but then Gaius remembered the scene in the dungeon, and Arthur's mission. Ah. That would explain his sullen mood.
After a moment's thought, Gaius decided gentle teasing might snap him out of it. He raised his eyebrow and prodded, "To listen to you go on about it, there's nothing worse than Arthur's hunting trips, save prolonged torture and execution."
"Which is what I'll be facing, on this trip, when we show up and, once again, there's no dragon." He tightened his grip on the camping knife he held, until his knuckles went white. "I can't keep lying about this forever, Gaius. I think I've already been through at least two different versions of what happened that night, and although right now Arthur might just think it was the horror of the battle confusing me, sooner or later he's going to catch me in a lie."
"My boy, you'll think of something. As much as I worry for you, if you've managed to keep your secrets this long, you can manage a while longer."
Merlin set the knife on the table with a snap and looked up to meet Gaius's gaze. "No, Gaius, I can't," he said, his voice straining with frustration. "The longer I keep my secrets, the more of them there are. The more of them there are, the more I have to lie to Arthur. I'm starting to forget what I've told him, Gaius! He knows something is up, but he's just let it go for now. How much longer will he be content to do that?"
He took a breath before continuing on, anger creeping into his tone now. "Worse, there's so much that I need to tell him, that I really need to share, because he's my friend! Arthur noticed that the trip to find Balinor upset me! He even asked me to confide in him, and I would have, if you hadn't warned me not to. Arthur would protect me in this, I'm sure of it – he of all people knows that we can't help who our fathers are. But no, thanks to you, I have another secret on top of the dozens I'm already keeping, and I'm pushing myself away from him even as he reaches out to me."
Gaius gaped at his charge. "But, Merlin –" he began.
"'But, Merlin' what? 'But, Merlin, you have to keep your secrets?' 'But, Merlin, you'll die if you don't?' Gaius, believe me, I know!" he shouted. "I'm staring to think I'll die if I don't tell him, that I'll just crumple up under the weight of all the lies and all the pain. And if I ever do tell him, I'll die just as surely as if I were caught, because even if he can accept that I'm magic, which he might have before I ruined that too with another lie, he'll never accept that I poisoned Morgana, that I –" he hesitated for a moment, "– that I've done bad things." The anger seemed to drain out of his voice with this, leaving a painful emptiness in its wake.
As much as Gaius wanted to reassure the boy, to coax him out of his pain and back into his usual high spirits, a question nagged at him. I've done bad things, he said, and there was a sword that shouldn't be there in the dragon's prison. "Merlin," he weighed his words and decided to plow onward, steeling himself for an answer he feared. "Merlin, did you free the dragon?"
Merlin's face became a cold mask. "I had to."
"But – but what you saw in the crystal, surely you knew – " Gaius stammered, aghast.
"Yes, Gaius, I knew! What was I supposed to do? Without my promise to free him, he would let me fight Morgause in vain, and then she would destroy Camelot! And once I swore on my mother's life, he told me to go murder my friend, so what would you have me do? Let Morgause win? Kill Morgana and then let my mother die too? I had to free him! I thought I could maybe control him!"
Merlin gestured once, and his eyes filled with gold. Small items zoomed around the room and into his basket. When the chaos finished, he picked it up and moved resolutely towards the door.
"And in the end, Gaius, I could." He walked out and closed the door firmly, leaving Gaius staring after him, stunned.