Author's note: Warning: some language. And this will likely be true for other chapters, so for those who are bothered by it, this is just to let you know since I may not bother with future warnings.
The Fractures Caused By the Weight of Endless Years
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He nearly broke when, one by one, they slowly emerged from the silvered mirror-like waters of the Lake of Avalon and made their processional way up to him on the shore with barely a ripple left in their wake.
He should have felt joy, but instead he felt like he was falling down a gorge.
Silently he watched as they exclaimed over each other, a weeping Gwen throwing herself into Arthur's arms, Leon and Percival clapping a mystified Elyan and Gwaine on the back, the mutual astonishment of Lancelot's appearance and then finally the confusion of the strange, auburn-haired man that nobody recognized until he rushed at Merlin with a happy cry of "My boy! Oh, my boy!".
Only Merlin noticed how his hands trembled as he embraced his surrogate father after fifteen centuries. Quickly he pushed his shock down inside him and hid it behind the walls around his heart.
They were full of questions as he lead them through the night to his home, but he forestalled them, telling them to wait until they arrived.
For a moment, when in the pale light of the hall he turned to face them and saw them damp and dripping in their tunics and chain mail and long robes and looking so unbelievably goddamned alien, he faltered. There seemed to be a screaming sound in his head.
But there were dry clothes to sort out and beds to find and people to be fed and so the provider in him took over. Merlin made sure they were warm and then put the whole group of them to bed. Then, unbeknownst to them, he spelled them to sleep for the next three days while he wept continuously and drank himself into red-eyed numbness, desperately swigging straight from the bottle while his mind shouted that it was physically incapable of reconciling their presence after a millennium and a half without them.
He learned then that, even when you receive the thing you most wished for in the world, it can still be irreparably tainted by the sheer length of the wait.
-x-
They didn't understand how long it had been. How could they? Even he hadn't known what it would be like before it happened to him. In their time, the general population's knowledge of the past only extended back a century or two. For them, time hadn't existed before the Roman Occupation. The colossal weight of fifteen hundred years pressing down on Merlin meant even less to them than it would have to the people in this era.
"Where are the others?" he asked Lancelot after he found the man tending to him on the night he'd found out his friend Harry had died.
"Probably still out looking for you," Lancelot said as he gently toweled the rain off of Merlin's hands.
"You shouldn't have done it, you know."
Lancelot stopped and looked at Merlin. "What, looked for you? Whatever else would we have done?"
"No. You shouldn't have sacrificed yourself. You shouldn't have walked through the Veil."
"Merlin, my friend, you know it had to be me."
"It might have been my only chance at mortality," Merlin said hollowly.
That he'd worried Lancelot with these words he figured out when the larger man suddenly clutched him in a fierce and painful bear hug, but however he tried, Merlin could not seem to hug him back.
He had thought their return would alleviate his loneliness, but now he just prayed it would end his time on Earth.
-x-
Everyone fought with one another. Arthur couldn't pretend to be comfortable with Lancelot, despite Merlin's explanation of it being a shade who kissed Gwen. Gwaine and Elyan felt left out and pushed aside when they found out about Merlin's magic. Gwen and Arthur, once they were over the brief but glorious honeymoon of being reunited, were having a hard time adjusting to the difference in their ages as well as the fact that Gwen had ruled Camelot for over forty years, decades longer than Arthur's short reign. Gaius and Merlin too were having trouble with their new roles and at times things were strained and awkward between them. And Arthur, despite knowing of Merlin's gifts and hearing all that he had done, still did not always see him as an equal.
Even Gwen and Merlin - rather foolishly thought of as the gentlest ones by the others who constantly forgot their decades of leadership - argued bitterly with each other at times. One day when Gwen, out of sorts after a tiff with Arthur, rather condescendingly demanded of Merlin in a sickly sweet voice where the sweet boy she'd once known had gone, Merlin had raised an eyebrow and icily asked back where the sweet girl he'd once known had gone.
She drew herself up rigidly. "I was Queen."
None were prepared for how imposing, and even frightening, Merlin could be when he stood tall and coldly raised his voice to proclaim, "And I am King of the Druids and the greatest sorcerer to walk the Earth. I spent every day in Camelot in constant danger for my own life, all to save the Kingdom from its greatest threats, and have lived through fifteen hundred years of Hell ever since, all to serve you once again. So tell me, my Queen, how you can be so blind as to not see the truth as to what I am even now?"
Gwen slapped him. Hard. But then she burst into tears and threw herself at him. His arms came up around her as she begged his forgiveness, but he could not quite bring himself to smile.
-x-
He had always presumed he would have developed some sort of detachment after all of these years. That - whether through supernatural wisdom or even just simple age - he'd be ready, that he'd be able to rise above his emotions and pain and be the all-knowing counsellor, sagely guiding his King through the daily challenges of life in this new world. Hell, there was a whole literary archetype based on him being that very image.
Instead, he spent his time trying to escape from bouts of morbid self-pity in which he wondered if the universe itself saw him as a lesser being. When he'd tried showing Arthur how to do laundry and Arthur had blithely insisted it was his job, Merlin had railed at his King for nearly a half an hour about democracy and the need for Arthur to be strong in the disaster to come and "even more importantly, most adults in this time are expected to goddamn learn to shift for themselves, you ungrateful bastard!"
But truthfully, he couldn't help but wonder if he actually is such a lowly creature that being Arthur's servant is somehow all he deserves. How could he believe anything else when he considered Destiny had kept him enslaved all this time only to once more force him to be there for Arthur, to do everything for Arthur, to protect Arthur.
Why that should be and what he could have ever possibly done to deserve such punishment, he could only guess at, but one thing was obvious: two sides of the coin they might be, but obviously he was the worn down, less valuable side.
-x-
There was so much to teach them he often had nightmares - they didn't know to be wary of guns, that cigarettes were bad for them, that sex could kill - but this evening they had begged for some time off from his endless lessons and he'd agreed. So they were relaxing now while Merlin played the piano.
He was quite good - after nearly two centuries he'd more than completed the theorized ten thousand hours of practice it supposedly took to be good at something - and they applauded enthusiastically despite the fact the music was all so strange to them they had no way of judging it. Merlin smiled a little ruefully at himself when they had the same reaction to Beethoven as they did to the theme from the "Munsters", a silly American sitcom from the sixties that was featured in a book of novelty tunes he'd got a rummage sale. But for once he let it go and just enjoyed himself, not bothering to enlighten them with the history of music. He turned and was about to - pointlessly - ask for a request, when he abruptly found himself really taking them in for the first time that evening.
They were relaxed and chatting amiably, several with drinks in their hands. Gwaine was spread out the floor, laying on his side with his head resting on his hand and laughing at something Percival said. Gwen was snuggled up to Arthur and Gaius was smiling at Merlin with approval. They were happy and he felt a warm grin tugging at his cheek as he looked on.
Then suddenly it all changed. Rushing out of the room with a half-shouted excuse, once out of their sight he waved a hand and for the first time since the night of their arrival he forced them all to sleep.
Often it's when the ordeal is over that the trauma of it hits. He knew it was only logical; after all, when you're in the midst of something, to get out of it your focus must be firmly forward. But when it's done…that is when life makes you look back and really see the horror of what you went through. He knew that, but it didn't help. Now that his loneliness should have been gone, maybe was gone, the memories of fifteen centuries of came crashing down on him like a fallen tower.
For whatever reason, the spell had not hit Gwaine; whether Merlin had simply missed or Destiny had woken him, it didn't matter. Alarmed at Merlin's racing out and then everyone else dropping into an instant slumber, he dashed after the warlock and to his horror found the man collapsed on the floor of the lavatory, being sick into the bath.
Merlin, shaking fit to tear himself apart, turned to see who had followed and the Knight saw that his friend was on the verge of a shrieking hysteria.
"Are you all truly here?" Merlin begged. "I haven't gone completely mad?"
Gwaine was a man of action and didn't waste words asking foolish questions. Sitting down beside his old friend, he pulled the man to him and rocked him while he cried.
-x-
It was amazing how he could take care of things when he was so close to fainting.
When Gaius was knocked down the steps near the library by a skateboarder and cracked his head, knocking him out, Merlin called 999* on his mobile and escorted Gaius to the hospital. He remembered to give them Gaius's fake I.D. and patiently told the nurse all of his friend's information and then numbly answered all of the waiting police constable's questions about the incident.
After Gaius was examined and x-rayed, he was discharged, but not before Merlin listened to all of the doctor's instructions about watching for the signs of concussion. Merlin drove them home and ordered Gaius to bed. He fixed the others dinner while answering all of their frantic inquiries and then went up without a further word to sit by his foster father's bedside.
It wasn't long before Gwen came in. Not paying attention to her, he was startled when she put the back of her hand to his cheek.
"Merlin, you're as pale as a sheet and your skin is like ice. I want you to go with Arthur and let me watch Gaius." Merlin protested, but he was in a daze and she was able to prod him to the doorway where Arthur was standing and watching him. "Go on, now," she ordered him gently.
Arthur took him by the arm and lead him into the bedroom he and Gwen shared. Merlin felt the other man pushing him to sit and so he did. Arthur sat down beside him and draped a comforting arm across the warlock's shoulders.
"Tell me," Arthur said.
"What's going to happen to me when you all die and leave me again?"
"You'll come with us this time."
"There's no reason to believe that."
"Then believe me, Merlin," Arthur vowed. "I am not going without you. You won't be alone ever again."
Merlin shivered. He wanted to believe, but hope was too much of a brutal thing.
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* The number for emergencies in Britain.