Merlin awoke when he heard something banging against his door. Was it the milkman? He didn't remember requesting to be on the milkman's rota.

Wait no… it's the twenty first century there is no milkman! Postman maybe? He didn't remember ordering anything though...

"MERLIN!" A voice shouted from behind his bedroom door. That startled him. How was-? How did he get in? Merlin jumped up from his bed and pushed open the door using magic sending whatever was behind it backwards.

He then looked up to see that cursed machine was in his house. He clenched his jaw and shook his head. Now The Doctor came? After all these years of him running away, hiding, pretending he didn't notice him. Now he was here. Merlin turned around as he decided he was going to go back to sleep.

"Merlin please." He heard a very quiet voice emerge from behind his open door.

Merlin sighed. He walked to the door and closed it to see The Doctor surprisingly with the same face he had seen earlier this year. "What do you want Doctor?" Merlin said coldly, "Please don't tell me you haven't come all this way, just to beg for my help?"

"I…" The Doctor hesitated, "I need you to save someone."

"Someone you endangered perhaps?" Merlin couldn't help himself. He just had to try and tear into the man in front of him, "I did warn you, didn't I? That you'd lose all those people you surround yourself with. Though I must admit, I wonder how many times it needs to happen before you wise up and let them go?" The Doctor jumped up to his feet and all Merlin did was hold up his hand in warning. He wasn't The Doctor's companions for him to order around. The Doctor seemingly calmed himself down.

"Please Merlin it's important!" The Doctor still begged.

"Yeah well so was my questions. And yet your spurned them at every turn. You never gave me an answer! Why should I help you?" The Doctor hesitated, "Give me one good reason why. Was it for all those times you helped me? Because you haven't. You've never helped me. No in fact you actively avoided me. Made a fool of me throughout time." Merlin scoffed, "And you want my help?"

"Merlin I can't lose-." Seemingly he focused on his dilemma.

"Oh you can't lose them? Aw how sad and pathetic. But the fact is you can stand to lose them, your life beyond emotional means is not connected to them. You are not the one condemned to walk the Earth for centuries in wait for them and whereby the one man who holds all the answers to your questions refuses to answer them because he just doesn't feel like it!"

"That's not true!"

"What part?"

"All of it! I can't give you that answer Merlin because…" The Doctor trailed off. Merlin raised an eyebrow. The Doctor now seemed more and more conflicted before a resolute look approached his face, "If I tell you will you help me?" Merlin didn't know whether or not he'd help The Doctor. Those years of torment being all alone, for The Doctor to hide everything from him. Merlin rubbed his eyes. He hadn't slept that much last night.

"Tell me Doctor, every time you faced an alien or something dangerous… you'd bargain with it." Merlin looked down on The Doctor, "Why didn't you do it with me? Why didn't you take me to a world where I could find a home?"

"Because you are home." The Doctor spoke with an element of desperation in his voice, "Did you hear me? If I answer your questions will you help me?"

"I will consider it." The Doctor opened his mouth, "If I find your answers lacking then I will decline."

"We are-."

"What running out of time? That's a time machine." Merlin pointed behind him to that horrid blue machine, "We can go back to the exact second you left." Merlin teleported the both of them to his dining room, where they sat on a table facing each other, "Tea?" The Doctor only clenched his jaw in response.

With a wave of his hand, he summoned a tray with a tea pot, two cups and a pot for sugar. In a show of frivolity he poured out two cups using his magic, "Would you like sugar Doctor? Or some milk?"

"I'll take it black with no sugar." The Doctor seemingly intent in not wasting time and Merlin wouldn't allow that.

"Very well." He pushed the cup towards The Doctor gently with a flick of his wrist. As soon as it reached him The Doctor took a sip by instinct and his face instantly scrunched up, "Are you sure you don't want any sugar? It can be very sharp for those with… more precise palates."

"I'm fine." So Merlin had chemically altered the tea he had given The Doctor, but that wasn't his fault The Doctor was the one who wanted to rush through this.

"If you are sure." Merlin spoke with a smile, "Oh… It seems I am out of milk I must-." Merlin stood up.

"MERLIN!" The Doctor shouted. "JUST ASK YOUR QUESTIONS!" The Doctor seemed completely out of whack. He had never seen him like this. Just who was he losing?

"Fine. When does Arthur come back?"

"I don't know." Merlin opened his mouth, "It's variable." The Doctor spoke quickly as if he couldn't help but get the answers out quick enough.

"Well me helping your friend is also variable, I might or might not. So if I were you Doctor I'd find something a bit more conclusive."

"You don't understand-."

"Well it's not like you've ever tried to help me understand." The Doctor hesitated. It seemed like what was in his mind couldn't be put into human words for him to comprehend.

"I.. It's like… imagine the world is like a Rubik's cube… well it isn't but-."

"I am capable of conceptual thinking Doctor." Merlin answered sharply.

"Well imagine that while Arthur was alive the Rubik's cube was completed, and when he died someone went and scrambled it."

"Who?"

"The… the world, I guess." The Doctor's answer sounded more like a question.

"You guess?"

"It's hard to explain."

"Well, I am glad you are explaining it so well and simply." Merlin said sarcastically rolling his eyes but nonetheless listened carefully.

"Look the world is constantly rotating and changing it." The Doctor explained.

"Fine the world is a Rubix cube, how do I solve it?"

"You… you can't. It's for the world to solve. Each turn has… the probability of slowly solving it but it also has the probability of scrambling it further."

"Then what triggers it's rotations and turns?" The Doctor didn't speak and Merlin had an idea of why he didn't speak, "The human race? Their decisions and actions cause it to rotate and change." Merlin said answering his own question, "It's like being one correct decision… one correct turn away from bringing Arthur back or one wrong decision from delaying Arthur's return further." The Doctor didn't say anything, "Okay so what's the correct decision?" All the Doctor did was stare at him, "Surely you could build an algorithm which can help propel the world in the right direction?"

"I could." The Doctor spoke quietly.

"Will you?" The Doctor sighed and stood up.

"I've answered your questions. You will now help me." Fair enough. The Doctor only said he'd answer my questions.

"As a reward-."

"No I've told you enough. I've answered all your questions. You will help me."

"Or what Doctor?" Merlin said standing up challenging him, "You'll declare war?" The Doctor said nothing and just stared at him, "We have lived in peaceful animosity of each other. I have not wronged you. Even when you spurned me, ignored me, denied me the truth. I did not lift one finger against you." The Doctor just stared, "And now when I do the same. When I deny you, you'd declare war Doctor?"

"You will help me." The Doctor spoke in deadly calm voice.

"I said a day would come when you would come to me for your lost companions. It seems today is the day and for that Doctor. I am sorry, for your loss." He could see the vein pop by the side of the Doctor's head as he said that. He also said he would mean it but he couldn't. Even now as he stared into the Doctor's eyes as the sadness gave into the anger, he couldn't force himself to feel bad as he denied The Doctor his help. He picked up his cup and started drinking his tea that had cooled down.

The Doctor walked to the door before turning to him, "You will regret this Merlin."

"I have lots of regrets Doctor." Before tilting his head to face him, "This won't be one of them."

And Merlin sat drinking his tea as the wheezing sound of Tardis disappeared.