Merlin seemed to have once more managed to shake off his black spells and showed hardly any sign of them to the outside world. Although he had in fact just got better at hiding his moods. Merlin would often go to bed with headaches when he was in fact having flashbacks of the past. He knew that Arthur still had guilt feelings about what had happened so did his best to hide the truth from him. Merlin occasionally found himself right back in that room and tried to pretend he was asleep if Arthur checked on him. This was easier than he thought; he often used this tactic during his kidnap. Most of the time, it was the feelings and thoughts that he had been responsible, in some way for what had happened. Merlin managed to hide these from everyone by convincing himself that it was best Arthur didn't know. It was his punishment.
Arthur even went back to work doing some of the shorter cases for Leon. He loved the work but made sure not to take anything that would keep him away from home to many days in a month.
Two years after the first holiday Arthur talked Merlin into going on another canal boat holiday and get married before they went. The marriage was very quiet as promised with just Morgana, Leon, Gwaine, Mithian and Hunith attending. In the end it was on the eleventh anniversary of their civil partnership. As Merlin had requested no one else knew about the ceremony until the couple returned home.
Three days later a much larger group set of on holiday. This time two barges were hired and a larger group went away for the two weeks. Arthur and Merlin went with Hunith, Morgana's family, Gwaine's family, Gwen's family, Percy and Freya, Gaius and Alice and Kay. The only dog to go was Isolde; Gwaine's dogs went into kennels.
Everyone who went enjoyed themselves. The second barge was an ordinary barge without the adaption's so the group meet ups and meals were on Merlin's barge. The children loved the holiday and kept Isolde busy. Once again they had good weather and, as on the previous occasion, the holiday did everyone a power of good. Merlin finally felt he had got back to how he had been before Uther's outburst. It did him so much good that Arthur ended up as chair to the charity that ran the special boats and the holidays became a regular event for them.
On their return Merlin once again started to work for the archive and Gaius continued to help him. Gaius had dropped all contact with Uther after what the man had done to Merlin. He had been disgusted with the other mans actions. When Gaius died in his sleep a year later Arthur was surprised how well Merlin coped. He even insisted on standing up and speaking at the church. He told the congregation how they had met, and some of the stories the older man had told him. He went on to say that Gaius had helped him to recover and how he would miss him. Merlin managed the funeral without breaking down but his speech did bring tears to many of the congregation's eyes. Alice told him afterwards the Gaius would have been proud of him.
When they got back home Merlin told Arthur that Uther had been at the back of the church to say goodbye to his old friend. The only other person who had spotted him had been Pallinor who had kept an eye on Uther, but like Merlin, had left him to say his goodbyes.
The next Christmas was a sad reminder of Gaius's death, Alice came over and they all made the best of it, but they could tell Merlin was missing his old friend. Arthur couldn't believe how the time had gone. Merlin had been rescued over twelve years previously but the effects had never gone away. Looking at Merlin he could hardly believe he would be forty next year. Despite all they had gone through he never regretted the day they got married, he just wished thing had been different. By now they would have been parents and celebrating Christmas with their own children instead of other peoples.
When Arthur realised that Isolde was ten years old he went out and bought Merlin another puppy. He knew from the vets that Jack Russell's often reached over fifteen years old but wanted to be sure Merlin always had a dog. Isolde had proved to be such a comfort to Merlin and Arthur couldn't bear the thought of Merlin being without a dog. The second puppy was also a girl and Merlin named her Finna. Luckily the two dogs got on straight away so Merlin was happy and when he was sat down had one dog at either side of him. Isolde remained the boss but Finna was just as protective of Merlin. Percy was in seventh heaven he loved the dogs and was always the first to offer to take them out if Merlin couldn't go for some reason.
The puppy had made an excellent fortieth birthday present for Merlin. That evening when they were sitting together Arthur teased Merlin when he found a grey hair in amongst the black. Merlin said Arthur was lucky that with his blonde hair the grey didn't show up. Merlin said he was looking forward to Arthur going grey as he always thought it made him look more distinguished. Or at least his barristers' wig did. They went to bed laughing.