Twenty Years Later (1/7)

[darkdeeplakes]

Title: Twenty Years Later

Pairing: Arthur/Merlin

Summary: Following a messy break up at University, Merlin and Arthur spend the next twenty years apart until circumstances bring them back together again.

Written for this kinkme_merlin prompt.

Part One

Three weeks before the first group meeting, the court papers finalising Arthur and Gwen’s divorce arrived, but the sense of closure he’d been hoping for - had been banking on, really - hadn’t materialised. If anything, the anticlimax that followed the anticipation had set him even further adrift than he already was.

‘I don’t feel anything,’ he remarked to his father. ‘I thought I would, you know?’

Uther looked across the breakfast table. He would normally have set off for the veterinary surgery an hour ago, and though they both knew he was delaying because he was reluctant to leave Arthur, both would die first rather than acknowledge it. ‘You will, Arthur,’ he said, ‘you will.’

‘You’re going to be late,’ said Arthur quietly. ‘You should go.’

Uther stood up and patted his forty-year-old son on the shoulder, unable to keep the look of regret off his face as Arthur tensed at his touch.

Once Uther had gone, Arthur poured himself another cup of coffee and ignored the daily papers. There was a second letter, but he could tell from the envelope it was from Dragonfly. Another card from the team, probably. It went unopened.

When he’d set the company up, Arthur had never thought that deciding whether to show up for work was something he would take advantage of, but he wasn’t about to knock it now. He hadn’t set foot in the office for months. Expeditions had been cancelled, digs had been postponed. His people had filled in for him where they could, but they could only do it for so long. The clients wanted him. Arthur Pendragon was Dragonfly, after all.

He sipped his rapidly cooling drink and briefly considered the advantages of cornflakes over muesli. At one point he had preferred the former and Gwen had usually gone for the latter. Now he found neither was to his taste.

Perhaps you should open the letter, he told himself, perhaps it‘ll get you back into the swing of things.

He stared at the envelope, turning it over and over in his hand. In the end he put it back on the table and went back sipping his coffee, hardly registering that it was icy cold now. He couldn’t open it. His work was too closely tied to his old life. It was too much. It was still too much.

~~~

Ever since Gwen left, almost exactly one year ago, Arthur had been living with Uther. It was an arrangement that mostly worked.

Not that there was any practical reason why he couldn’t have carried on living in the London apartment. It was big enough, that was for sure. It was well-equipped enough, and it certainly fitted in better with the person Arthur was, and the person people expected him to be. It was, on the face of things, a flawless residence. But it had been full of plurals: theirs; his and Gwen’s; where they had lived. And he knew, without needing to put it to the test, that to stay there after she’d gone, picking his way around the evidence of their perfectly enacted lives, of everything they had been, was too much to think about, so he hadn’t.

The last time he’d been there he had stood and watched silently as his life disintegrated around him. Through the window, he saw a car pull up outside and a man get out - a face he recognised from Gwen’s old Uni photographs. Then he’d watched as his wife walked over to the car and embraced the half-familiar man. He had waited for the sound of the door to slam behind her, then he’d had gone upstairs, thrown what he needed into a bag, and driven to Uther’s in a daze. It was indicative of his state of mind at the time that he’d only taken their fourth best car.

~~~

Uther had been right. Eventually Arthur did feel something. It took a day or two, but instead of the euphoric freedom that his single friends had led him to expect, there had been nothing but a clawing sense of asphyxia and panic, and an ill-defined longing that he hadn’t felt for a long time.

The panic and the longing had terrified him the most. It had been bad enough the first time, and had left him hollow enough to spend the intervening time trying to pretend it had never happened. But now, twenty years later, when he’d almost reached that point again, it looked as if his attempts to rewrite history had been unsuccessful.

After she’d left, Arthur had been just about able to keep a handle on things for a while. He’d always done what was expected of him, and he treated the break-up no differently. He’d seen what people did when their lives fell apart, and initially he’d tried to do that too: he’d shown up for work, kept up with friends, continued to irritate the hell out of his sister.

But after a while, everything ground to a halt.

Morgana hardly got a rise out of him anymore; he barely returned anyone’s calls these days; he hadn’t been into work for months. And even though he was sure he had done all the right things, it still felt like he was working through a checklist for someone else’s closure. At the end of the day, it was just a list. And sure enough, after the divorce was final and the long-anticipated relief failed to materialise, things started to unravel in earnest.

~~~

Uther Pendragon was well aware that his son did not react well to a high level of emotion in his life, so he held off getting himself involved, despite Arthur having lately taken to spending most of his time at home staring at the wall, or reading the same page of a book over and over again, or pretending he was keeping in touch with his friends, or making plans for the next dig, when in fact, he was doing nothing of the sort. But when Arthur started to withdraw to the point where the confident, forward-looking man Uther knew was barely recognisable, he decided to step in.

He started by suggesting that Arthur got back in touch with people he’d fallen out of contact with. ‘What about Kay?’ he said, two days after the final decree had come through. ‘You were in China together, weren’t you?’ Arthur had nodded distractedly and made another vague promise that Uther doubted would ever be fulfilled.

‘Who was that guy you knocked about with, in your first year at University,’ Uther asked, as Arthur picked at his toast, a couple of days later he mentioned Kay. ‘You remember? The kid that stayed with us for the Easter break? You were inseparable. I liked him. What was his name?’

'Merlin,' Arthur said, pushing away the shock of an unprompted, still-vivid memory. A narrow shoulder blade, pressed against his chest. Against your heart was what Merlin had always whispered. Another memory. 'We ... we lost touch,' Arthur said, quickly, before any more of his past could escape.

‘So get in touch.’ Uther said, pushing his glasses back up his nose. ‘It’s easy these days, isn’t it? You all have, erm, Facebook ... and ... well, don’t you?’ he said, trailing off, out of his depth.

‘I haven’t seen him for years,’ Arthur said. ‘I wouldn’t know where to start looking for him, and besides, I doubt he’d want to hear from me.’

Uther opened his mouth as if to reply and shut it again.

Arthur sank down a little further into himself. As far as anyone else was aware, Arthur and Merlin had simply lost touch, and it being so long ago, Uther wasn't to know what that name could still do to him. He'd hidden it well, rationalised what had happened, made excuses, and given it so many different readings that most of the time he almost had himself convinced that it hadn’t really meant that much anyway.

But he had never, ever, forgotten the blind horror that had gripped him in the months after Merlin had gone, and Arthur had come, slowly, to realise, that there was nothing he could do to repair the damage, and nothing he could do to make him come back.

‘What about talking to someone?’ Uther said next. He got an angry glare for his trouble, but ploughed on regardless, and pushed the leaflet across the table to his son.

Uther had seen the leaflet on the surgery noticeboard several days ago, almost hidden under the heap of usual announcements for jumble sales and toddler groups and yoga. He almost hadn’t taken it, but for the fact that it wasn’t counselling, exactly. The only thing to change his mind was that the group - a men’s support group - didn’t sound too intimidating. Apparently, you didn’t even have to say anything if you didn’t want to.

‘At least take a look,’ he said to Arthur. ‘It’s for men, to talk about, well, men things. Give you a chance to, if you wanted to. There’s no hugging or crying or anything like that - I already called and checked - and you know you’re free on Tuesday evenings.’

Arthur was rolling his eyes even before he unfolded the dog-eared scrap of paper. It was for something called a Men’s Personal Growth Group and, true to Uther’s word, it did specify that no hugging was required. It did, however, focus on relationships and feeling, two areas Arthur had no particular desire to offer up for scrutiny.

Arthur folded the leaflet, stood and made to stalk out of the kitchen when something caught his eye. It was his reflection in the glass-fronted cabinets. Dark-ringed eyes stared back at him. He saw the uneven stubble that was verging on a beard. He saw the downward tilt to his lips and the sallow hue to his skin. And as bad a mess as looked back at him, he knew that compared to what lay under the surface, his appearance was just the tip of the iceberg.

He looked at the leaflet again. He’d tried everything else. Fuck it. He might as well give this a go too.

~~~

Merlin glanced at his watch.

He was going to be late, and it was only his second week at the group. He dug his hand into his pocket and pulled out the leaflet again.

He wasn’t quite sure why he was going back after the first week, anyway. He was fine. Everything was fine. He was the lucky one, after all. And if he said it in the right tone of voice, he almost had himself convinced too. But, as Will was getting pretty fucking fond of pointing out to him, he was full of shit.

~~~

‘You're far from alright,’ Will had said, just over a week ago. ‘If it wasn't for me and Soph hounding you out of here every now and again, I don't think you'd have moved from that desk of yours in months.’

‘Don't have to,’ said Merlin, a little childishly, 'I can work from home.'

'Yeah?' said Will. 'They're serious fucking architects. They've put up with it for over a year, but sooner or later, they'll need you to meet a client, you’ll say no, and then -' Will made a cutting motion across his own neck. 'Seriously, mate,' he said, as Merlin shrugged. 'Freya's gone, and nothing’s gonna change that. You need to stop blaming yourself; it wasn't your fault.’

‘But what if I'd stayed?' Merlin mumbled at his bowl. The contents appeared to be at an intermediate point between a stew and a soup, and had been inexpertly cooked by Sophia earlier that evening. She’d rushed off to an exercise class straight after dishing it up, presumably to avoid the fallout. 'If I'd stayed, if I hadn't ended things when I did. If I hadn't been so fucking selfish, Will, she'd still be here.'

The soup spoon fell from Merlin’s hand onto the striped tablecloth below. Will reached out and grasped Merlin's shaking fingers in his own before he could snatch them back. 'That still doesn't make it your fault,’ he said. ‘It was an accident, you know that. Freya always wanted what was best for you, and you for her. That's why you split; not because you were selfish. Don't let your grief and your guilt tell you something else.'

Merlin picked up his spoon and continued with the stew. 'What do you want me to do then?’ he asked. 'Go out and meet new people?'

'Yes,' said Will, serious for once, 'that's exactly what I want you to do.’

Merlin stabbed morosely at an almost definitely undercooked piece of chicken. 'Meet new people? And how do you propose I do that? I'm thirty-nine, Will, not thirteen.’

Will grinned at him, reached back to pick up a sheet of photocopied paper from the sideboard and handed it to Merlin. 'I was hoping you were going to ask me,' he said, 'you can start by meeting people here.'

Merlin looked at the leaflet, a look of disbelief unfolding across his face. 'A men’s support group?' he said. 'Fuck off, I'm not going to that.'

'Well, you're not talking to us,' Will said, ‘so they way I see it, you can go and talk to them.'

'The fuck I can,' said Merlin, though his righteous indignation was ruined somewhat by his choking, unexpectedly, on a still-frozen carrot slice. 'What you gonna do? March me in the door?'

'No,' said Will, breaking out his most evil grin, 'but if you don't, I'm getting Soph to bring dinner over to yours every night until you do.'

'You bastard,' said Merlin. 'Okay, I'll go, but if it's shit - which it will be - I'm not going again.'

'Fine,' said Will. In all honesty, he hadn't been expecting Merlin to crack so easily. His wife's cooking was a threat he had obviously underestimated, and he noted that for future abuse.

~~~

There was a deep murmur from the back of the community hall.

Arthur hesitated for a moment to ascertain that they were, in fact, manly voices, before deciding that this was probably the right place. He took a deep breath, checked his watch, reminded himself he didn’t get nervous, and pushed the door open.

The scene he was expecting - an ocean of unfamiliar faces, everyone lined up on chairs, staring at him - was not the one he was confronted by. Instead, there were a few small groups of men here and there, some talking, some getting hot drinks. Some, reassuringly, were just sitting around by themselves, checking their phones.

Even so, Arthur still shuddered at the prospect of what he'd let himself in for. The thought of uncovering his darkest, innermost feelings, even in the most factual, perfunctory way, filled him with dread. And that was aside from the fact that he wasn't exactly sure what these feelings were supposed to be, other than they were currently disrupting his life. He wasn’t good with unchartered territory at the best of times, but despite that, there was a tiny part of him, barely on the sidelines of his awareness, that wanted to be there.

He stared round the room, not quite sure what to do with himself. Drink. He decided on a drink. He estimated that he could spin that out for at least three minutes without having to participate in a stilted conversation. Four if he was lucky.

He walked over to the refreshment table, head down, and set about fiddling distractedly with the challenging combination of sugar, hot water and a plastic cup.

'Sure you don't want some actual tea or coffee in there?' said someone to his left. It was a soft, calming voice, even though it was currently being used to draw Arthur’s attention to the fact that he was having difficulty with a relatively simple task.

‘Well, I’d hate to ruin the hot water,’ Arthur retorted, not looking up, his head spinning suddenly with the evocative cadence of the stranger’s voice. The man laughed quietly, and Arthur could see, from under his fringe, the man’s long, pale fingers and slim, bony wrists resting against the tea-stained tablecloth.

'First time here,’ he muttered, by way of explanation, ‘don’t really know what to do with myself.' He turned to the man with the beginnings of a grin on his face, but it vanished the instant he realised the owner of the voice wasn't a stranger at all.

'Merlin?'

'Arthur?' the man said. 'Is it really you?' He looked confused. Really confused. And Arthur was no help, as for a few seconds all he could do was stare greedily at the details of a sight he hadn’t seen for years.

He looked different, but not by much. He still blushed easily when he was at a loss for what to do or say, that was painfully obvious, and there were a few more lines around his eyes, but they were still the deepest, most distracting shade of blue.

Merlin took a step back and ran a hand through his hair. Still staring, he pushed a pair of delicate, wire-framed glasses back up the bridge of his nose.

He was as thin as Arthur remembered, even thinner maybe, but he seemed a little more substantial now, more self-assured. His dark brown hair was shorter, and touched with grey here and there. The hair was, Arthur concluded, still an unfortunate mess, but the grey suited him. A lot. It made him look ... well ... Arthur had wanted to go with distinguished, but at the last minute his brain decided to fuck him over with gorgeous instead.

‘I guess what are you doing here? is pretty redundant at this point,' Merlin said. He had the same slight, humorous lift to his eyebrows which, like the broad, affectionate smile, Arthur had spent years trying to remove from all but his unconscious thoughts. He wasn’t smiling now though, but given how they’d left things, that wasn't much of a surprise, even given the time that has passed.

'Guess so,’ said Arthur . ‘How about, er, good to see you then?’ he said, and regretted the words even before they were out of his mouth.

There was an awful moment when Merlin looked him up and down, the gravity of his hesitation hanging heavily in the air. For a second, Arthur was sure he was going to push him away, or punch him, or turn on his heel and walk off without a word.

'Okay everyone,' someone called, 'time to start.' They both turned to see a man in his mid-twenties with dark blond hair beckoning the stragglers over to a circle of chairs that had, apparently, sprung up while Arthur had been busy failing to make a hot drink.

Merlin glanced back to Arthur, and away again. 'Yeah,’ he said, ‘you’re the last person I expected to see here,’ and he bolted off to a seat on the other side of the room.

Even given Merlin’s less than enthusiastic response, Arthur found that his feet were aching to follow, but his brain won out, and he found a chair at the opposite end of the semicircle.

Well, this is in no way excruciating, he thought, as the group started, and people began to introduce themselves. The door was too far away to allow for a discreet exit, so in the absence of that option, he decided the best plan was to play along for as long as he had to, and at the first opportunity, get the hell out of there.

~~~

Merlin sat down in an uncomfortable plastic chair that reminded him of school, and tried to compose himself.

Even though the talking part wasn’t actually that bad, he’d known coming here again would be a mistake, and now the evidence for that was sitting across the room, about as far away from him as it was possible to be. He guessed some things hadn’t changed.

One thing about the group that, at that precise moment, Merlin found he was more than grateful for, was that as far as the talking part went, contributing to a discussion counted just as much as talking about oneself. And he had no intention of revealing anything about himself while Arthur Pendragon was in the room

It seemed, from the details Mark - the blond man who ran the group - had managed to coax from Arthur, that he had been pretty busy since they had seen each other last.

He was, apparently, an explorer of some sort - though he said he hadn’t been doing any actual exploring of late, and he had run his own company doing exactly that since his early twenties. He’d also been married for years, only recently divorced. Evidently, Merlin noted, he’d managed to figure out which side of the coin he was on after all.

All in all, Arthur’s history, although recently a bit of a disaster, was wholly respectable, and it was this respectability that made Merlin even less willing to let Arthur to know how he had been spending his time.

Where Arthur had had one ten-year marriage and no one significant preceding that, Merlin had followed an entirely different path. There had been so many people in his life that sometimes he even struggled with their names. Before Freya there had been Harry, then Nimh, then Edwin, then Mordred, then Myror... the list went on ... fuck, he could even count Cedric if he wanted to, though on balance he was probably more of a stalker than an actual boyfriend.

On the face of it, Merlin knew that it looked like he gave his affection away easily, but that was far from the truth. He'd felt a connection with all of them, but what they all also had in common was that the connection had never been quite enough for him. Never quite what he wanted. But as Arthur continued, he realised that wasn't even the point. The point was, compared to Arthur and his serious life - and he didn’t particularly want to examine why he felt the need to make that comparison - Merlin felt, well, a little bit frivolous.

He was also obscurely stung by how busy Arthur had been. Well, up until recently anyway. It was easy to see why he would hardly have given him a second thought. His bland, indifferent, and quite frankly thoughtless good to see you made that clear enough. He knew it was stupid, and possibly a little self indulgent after all this time, but Merlin had to try hard to resist the urge to shout or hit him or something, because Arthur so evidently didn’t give a fuck at just the same moment that Merlin remembered that he really, really did.

He shook himself free from his thoughts to find that the room was silent. Immediately, he looked across at Arthur, and realised that he’d stopped talking.

‘Thank you for telling us a little about yourself, Arthur,’ said Mark. ‘Would you be comfortable sharing your reasons for being here?’

Arthur frowned. ‘I’m not sure really. Why it is I’m here, that is,’ he said. ‘Coming here was actually more of someone else’s suggestion than mine.’ A knowing chuckle rolled across the room. Even having only attended one week, Merlin was well aware that many of the group’s members had been coerced into attending by concerned partners, or family members, or friends.

‘And do you think there might be anything here for you?’ said Mark.

Arthur shifted uncomfortably at the attention, and Merlin was laid bare by a poorly anticipated pang of concern. The man he remembered - the boy really - had been only too willing to talk about himself. Especially about himself, if he remembered correctly. This Arthur was different, and Merlin wondered what had caused him to change so much.

‘I think there might be,’ Arthur said, and it sounded like he had to drag the air from his lungs to speak. ‘Maybe. I hope so,’ he said, and then the words were spilling out into the silence of the room. ‘After Gwen and I split, I tried to carry on as normal, but after a while, it just wasn’t happening, and before I knew it everything just sort of ... stopped. The thing is,’ he said, his eyes boring a hole into a spot on the wall opposite. ‘I could understand it if it was the break up, but it felt like that was just the final part. It was the end of everything I’d been up till them. None of it seemed real anymore, it was like I’d gone wrong somewhere along the line ...’ he trailed off, embarrassed. ‘I guess I was hoping this might give me some way of understanding how to put things right.’

‘Thank you Arthur,’ Mark said, ‘for sharing so much with us. I’m sure, if you want to come back, you’ll find the support you need here.’

There were murmurs of sympathy and solidarity from the rest of the group. Merlin didn’t join in but he did sneak a glance over at Arthur; seeing him look so drawn and subdued, he felt kind of pathetic for holding on to something that had happened so long ago.

Things are different now, they have been for years, he told himself, as he’d done many times before. It was high time he stopped holding onto the past like it still meant something. Arthur had been perfectly entitled to make his choices, and if an unexpected coincidence had brought them back into each other’s lives for an hour or so, then he could live with that.

It was another forty minutes until the group finished, by which time Merlin had convinced himself that perhaps he could have been a bit nicer to Arthur, all things considered, it being his first week and everything. As everyone started to filter out, he steeled himself and wandered across to him.

‘Arthur,’ he called, but apparently Arthur was intent on getting out of the door as fast as humanly possible. Getting no response, he shouted, ‘Arthur, wait.’

Arthur stopped and turned. ‘Hello again,’ he said, looking at Merlin cautiously. ‘Uh, sorry about earlier. I should have thought: you probably didn’t want to talk to me, did you?‘

‘That’s not true,’ Merlin said. He wasn’t sure if that was quite the truth either, but he reminded himself sternly that if he hadn’t dealt with his adolescent issues by now it was his own stupid fault. ‘I’m the one who should be sorry. I was just surprised, that’s all. I hadn’t seen you for years and then, here of all places, you suddenly appear. It is good to see you,’ he said, all in a rush, equally surprised and slightly hating that he meant that part. ‘Erm, I’m sorry about your marriage, by the way.’

Arthur shrugged, and Merlin couldn’t help but notice how much he was avoiding eye contact. ‘Yeah, well ...’ he said, trailing off. ‘Tonight was a lot better than I thought it was going to be. I didn’t think I was going to be able to say anything.’

‘I thought it was going to be rubbish too,’ said Merlin. ‘This is only my second week though, so I might not be the best judge.’

‘Well, in that case I probably won’t hold you to it,’ Arthur said, a tiny smile playing on his lips.

Merlin laughed, and regretted it immediately, because it was at that point Arthur chose to look directly at him, his face lighting up in exactly the way he remembered. Bright and open and almost painful to look at. Despite how sad and exhausted he looked, now the evidence was in front of him, he had to admit that the years had been kind to Arthur.

‘So you think you’ll be back?’ Merlin asked, before he could help himself.

‘Probably,’ said Arthur. ‘Unless, you know, you’d rather I didn’t.’

‘Don’t say that,’ Merlin said quietly, looking away, suddenly absorbed by a loose thread on his sleeve. ‘I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable. I didn’t, did I?’

‘Well,’ said Arthur, ‘it was only a tiny bit bloody awkward. But that’s alright.’

‘Ah,’ said Merlin. ‘Well that’s something, I suppose,’ and went back to his sleeve.

From behind them, the caretaker coughed meaningfully, eager to lock up for the evening.

‘So,’ said Arthur, after a few long, awkward moments where both of them wanted to prolong their exchange, but neither of them quite knew how to do it, ‘see you next week then?’

‘Yeah,’ Merlin said, ‘next week.’

Unfortunately, neither of them meant a word of it.

~~~

At first, it seemed like miles off, but it was soon Monday night, and Merlin found himself stalking up and down his flat, trying to convince himself that he couldn’t go to the group the next day for a reason that was perfectly legitimate and had nothing to do with Arthur being there.

The only problem was that his legitimate reason was taking its time showing up, and it was late Tuesday morning before he’d taken a deep breath, picked up the phone and arranged a long overdue meeting with a client in Central London. That he would most likely be tied up with them until early evening had nothing to do with his decision making. Nothing at all.

He emerged from the meeting at four-thirty. The client hadn’t been as demanding as he’d expected, and he felt half-pleased with himself, and half-relieved, that something that he’d been avoiding for so long had actually gone ... kind of okay.

He walked aimlessly, wanting nothing more than to feel the purposeful activity of London buzzing around him. It was another half hour before it occurred to him to look around and get his bearings. To his surprise, he appeared to be in the middle of Bloomsbury, across the road from the British Museum.

The familiar sight of the tall iron entrance gates, and visitors swarming up and down the steps outside, was a reminder of the research he’d planned to do before he’d returned to England and got himself stuck in the rut he was presently in.

He and Freya had been living in France when he’d found out that a magically inscribed bowl was listed amongst the exhibits. As soon as he read the description, he wanted to come back and look at it, but something always got in the way. Then, when circumstances where such that he’d had no choice but to return, in the grey, soaking drizzle of the previous Spring, holding on tightly to a casket of ashes that it seemed too soon to let go of, all he wanted to do was forget about magic and who he was and how those two things might fit together.

Well, he thought, I’m here now. Might was well take a look.

Glancing at his watch, he saw that it was just after five. The place would be clearing out soon; with a bit of luck, he might be able to grab a few undisturbed minutes to figure out whether the exhibit might be authentic.

Merlin walked through the museum entrance into the bright, airy expanse of the foyer, and stopped at the information stand. He stood and waited patiently for the boy and girl behind the desk to notice him, smoothing out the creases in his suit and loosening his tie, but after five minutes even his considerable patience was wearing thin. He raised his left hand discreetly, and with one slight, careful gesture, he sent a stack of leaflets fluttering to the ground.

Their conversation at an end, the pair exchanged a loaded glance before the girl shoved the boy in his direction, and hovered, not far behind.

‘Can I help?’ the boy said, looking up through long, dark eyelashes. ‘Map?’ said the girl, beaming relentlessly as she thrust a leaflet into his hand. They were both flirting. Outrageously. Amateurishly. But he knew the signs too well for it to be anything else.

‘Thank you,’ Merlin said, running a self-conscious hand through his hair, and gave them a little, apologetic wave as he moved away from the desk. Lovely as they both were, he had no intention of taking things any further. Studying the map as he walked, he spotted the room he wanted, and headed off in the general direction of the Elgin Marbles.

~~~

When he reached the Marbles he had to do a double take.

There, in amongst the appropriated sculptures, was Arthur, gesturing excitedly to six, no seven, no, actually, after further recount he was apparently with eight equally excited children of varying ages, all of whom looked related.

Like the week before, Arthur was the last person he expected to see. Floored by the strangeness of the situation, Merlin was unsure whether catching Arthur’s eye would be too much of an intrusion, and hesitated for a second, wondering if maybe he should try and negotiate his way around the modern day Von Trapp family without attracting attention.

'Hey, hey, Merlin.'

Clearly, he’d left it exactly one second too late.

Merlin waved and made his way over to Arthur and the gaggle of variously aged children. Now they he didn’t have the harsh fluorescent lighting of the community hall to contend with, he could see Arthur properly. He had a light tan, and there were shallow lines across his forehead and around his eyes, but he didn’t look as drawn and subdued as he had the week before. Arthur smiled and Merlin was confronted by eyes that were still as blue and arresting as they had ever been. As blue as they always had been in the dreams that Merlin pretended he never had, that there had been no evidence for except for his sheets, and in the first few raw seconds of waking, when he was defenceless against anything his imagination chose to throw at him, unfiltered in its intensity.

‘So,' Merlin said, when it appeared neither of them were going to acknowledge that coincidence had apparently brought them together again. 'I guess you didn’t fancy the group after all?'

‘It’s not that,' Arthur said, 'I had this planned a while back, but I forgot about it. I only decided on the group the day before I went. Anyway,' he said, changing the subject far too quickly, in Merlin's opinion, 'what's your excuse?'

Merlin shrugged, unwilling to recount the sequence of events that had led him here. 'I don't have one, really. I wanted to look at something, so here I am. Anyway, I didn't think museums were your thing.'

Arthur laughed, 'They kind of are these days,' he said. 'Explorer, remember?’ Then he frowned, as if remembering something. ‘Look Merlin, if last week was too weird I can find another group. It's no problem.'

'No! No,' said Merlin, the words coming out a little more emphatically than he'd expected, 'I'm going again. Just not today.' Then, feeling they were about to stray into dangerous territory, he went for the most obvious question. 'These your kids then?'

'God no,' said Arthur. 'My sister’s, do you remember her?'

'Morgana?' Of course he did. She was hard to forget. Then: 'Eight?’

Arthur nodded. 'She takes her reproductive responsibilities very seriously, you know. Good thing too, since I’m not likely to come up with the goods.'

It was a light-hearted comment. Obviously. But part of Merlin didn't want to feel so connected to the conversation they were having. It was too strange, and there were too many events that Arthur was talking about that Merlin had no connection to, and he’d never considered - never thought he'd need to consider - how disoriented and excluded that would make him feel. It was worse, in a way, this separate, unknown history that stretched out between them, than not knowing at all.

Merlin opened his mouth to say something, but he was interrupted by a reddish haired man who walked up to Arthur and slapped him on the back.

'We're ready to go now, Indiana,' he said. The man peered at him, then peered again, and said, 'Merlin? It's Leon - you remember me, right?’'

'Leon,' said Merlin. ‘Yes, er, yes, I do.’ And now Merlin looked at him he could see vague remnants of the strawberry-blond boy who had followed Arthur’s sister around like a puppy.

He looked back to Arthur: ‘Indiana?’ said Merlin grinning broadly, whose mind’s eye was busy working on the not entirely unwelcome image of Arthur with a bullwhip.

‘That's nothing,’ Leon piped up. ‘You should hear what Morgana calls him.’

Merlin looked at Arthur, an eyebrow raised. ‘Well?’

'Dora,' Arthur mumbled, shooting Leon a distinctly unimpressed look.

‘What?’ said Merlin, even though he'd heard him quite clearly the first time.

‘Dora. You know, as in the explorer.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ Merlin said, as he and Leon tried unsuccessfully to keep from laughing. ‘Kind of suits you.’

‘Fuck off, the pair of you,’ said Arthur, but he didn’t look all that angry.

Leon walked off and went about the business of rounding up his offspring. On closer inspection, Merlin could see traces of Morgana in some of them; the dark hair and pale skin. It occurred to him that the imperious glares from the youngest girl, who could hardly have been over four years old, might be genetic too.

‘So,’ said Arthur, ‘now I'm completely humiliated, what do you say to a quick coffee?

‘You two off then?’ Leon said, reappearing for a brief moment.

'Why not?' said Merlin. It seemed the bowl would have to wait.

'Brilliant,' Arthur beamed. He raised his arm, as if to wrap it around Merlin's shoulder, and then lowered it again. 'C’mon, let's go.'

~~~

They sat in the cafe trying not to stare at one another, though Arthur gave up on that pretty quickly.

He was still surprised that he'd suggested a drink, and that Merlin had accepted. It was probably the shock and, oddly, the relief of seeing him that had done it - at the museum of all places - coupled with the fact that the only places he'd been in the last few months had been to Morgana and Leon's, and the group last week.

He hadn't been lying when he said the trip had been planned for a while, either. Morgana had called him up a few weeks back and insisted he did something apart from, as she so charmingly put it, sit around that bloody house like you're waiting for someone to come and sweep you up. Like most things he agreed to that involved social interaction, he had no intention of following it through, but in the end his unwillingness to deal with one situation had led him to confront another.

To his surprise, it hadn't taken long to start enjoying himself. There had been a few horrible minutes after they'd set off when he realised that, yes, he really wouldn’t have to come face to face with Merlin again that night, and he had felt far more unhappy about that than he'd expected. Still, it was good to think about something other than himself for a while, and the constant demands and questions from the children had kept him busy, right up until he caught sight of the very person he'd been trying to avoid.

Now, as they sat side by side, a little cramped, in the only seats available, sipping their drinks and dividing up the three different slices of cake Merlin, apparently completely unable to make a confectionary related decision, had insisted on buying. It felt almost, well, nice.

'What did you come to the museum to see?' Arthur asked. 'You said you were there to look at something.'

Merlin pushed his glasses back up his nose and stirred his coffee. A little pointless, Arthur thought, since he didn't take milk or sugar. 'Nothing important really,' he said, looking embarrassed. He shrugged. 'I wanted to look at an inscription on a bowl. It was supposed to be used for magic, a long time ago, and I wanted to find out more about it.'

Another surprise. Merlin had never shown an interest in anything like that when they had been students, having been enrolled on a Fine Art course. Then again, on the way to the coffee shop, Arthur had discovered he was an architect, and he'd never known he was interested in that, either.

'We find objects like that sometimes, on digs,' Arthur said. 'If you like, I can look up our records and find out where they went. Museums, I expect, mainly.'

'Really?' said Merlin. 'That would be great. I've just started getting back into it.'

'So, this is your hobby?'

Merlin nodded. 'Sort of. I've just started up again. After ... after ...' he frowned, took his glasses off and started fiddling with them. 'Well, anyway, I haven't been interested in much for a while.'

Arthur wanted to ask After what? but he knew from his own experience how it felt to be hounded with questions, and how he hated being forced to think about the answers. It occurred to him then that Merlin had hardly spoken at the group, except to comment on what the other members had to say, or offer encouragement. He had said almost nothing about himself. In fact, all Arthur knew about the new Merlin was the job he did, one museum he liked and that he looked pretty good in a suit.

Stop checking him out, you strange, inappropriate, man he told himself.

But he'd never been able to help that then, and he couldn't help it now, either. The man Merlin had become, leaning back in the seat beside him, was impossible not to look at. Arthur's eyes drifted to Merlin's cheekbones, which still swept across his face at perfect angles.

'Arthur?'

He looked up and realised Merlin was staring at him, a slightly bemused expression on his face.

'Sorry,' Arthur said. 'Miles away.' Years away, more like, he thought.

'If you're too tired we can do this another time,' Merlin said. 'Eight kids and a museum trip had got to be hard going.'

'No,' Arthur shook his head though it was true; he would never have normally agreed to take Leon and Morgana’s child army on a trip. 'I haven't seen you in so long. We should catch up. I want to catch up.'

'Okay,' said Merlin, though he looked cautious. 'Let's do that.'

It turned out that after their first year at university - the last time they'd seen each other before the group - Merlin had spent the summer with his father's family in Ireland. During that time he'd changed careers, and had come back to a different degree in a different city.

'I travelled around a lot after I qualified,' Merlin said. 'All over the place, really. I was in France until last year. It was beautiful. I loved it there.'

'Why did you come back?'

'I had a girlfriend,' Merlin said, and Arthur started to get a pretty good idea this had been the topic he'd wanted to avoid earlier. 'We split up ...'

'I'm sorry,' said Arthur, surprised to find that he was.

'She died not long after,' Merlin said, his voice becoming strained and distant. 'The day I was due to leave, in fact.'

'Oh god,' said Arthur, 'I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you talk about -'

'It's alright,' said Merlin, though the tight set of his mouth didn't quite tally with the lightness of his tone. 'I'm fine, really. It's just my friends ... they think it's time I should be out looking for someone else, and I'm just not that interested. The talking about it part is fine, mostly,' he said, giving Arthur a watery grin. 'Just don't try to set me up with anyone.'

'I think I can manage that,' said Arthur. 'I don't exactly get out much myself.'

'Well,' said Merlin. 'That's all about me, I guess.'

Arthur had hundreds more questions on the tip of his tongue; the few minutes in which Merlin had summarised his life not being nearly long enough. There were so many gaps, there must have been so many events and so many milestones, and now, suddenly, he was hungry to hear about them. But before he asked anything else, something that had been weighing heavily on his mind. He took a deep breath. Now was as good a time as any.

‘Look,' said Arthur, 'I’m sorry about what happened. At university, I mean,’

'It's okay --' Merlin said.

‘No Merlin, it’s not okay,' said Arthur, ready with the lengthy apology that he’d been working on since the museum.

'Arthur -'

'The things I said to you. They were unforgiv -'

‘Arthur,' Merlin said, and leaned forward a little. 'That was years ago. And I really, really don’t want to rake over the past. I just want to move forward now; I was hoping, maybe, we could be friends.'

‘Friends?' said Arthur.

‘Friends,’ said Merlin, cautious again, his eyes scanning Arthur's face. ‘If you'd like.’

Arthur exhaled slowly. It was only then that he realised that he’d been holding his breath.

After a couple of hours of easy small talk, Merlin needed to go. Arthur walked with him to the tube. He knew, because of the group, that Merlin and Uther mustn't live too far away from one another, and he only just managed to stop himself from asking exactly where.

‘Are you going far?’ Merlin asked.

‘We - I mean I - have an apartment nearby,’ Arthur said, neglecting to mention he hadn’t set foot in it since Gwen had left him.

‘Some of the buildings around here are beautiful,’ said Merlin. His eyes crinkled easily and his lips twitched briefly into a smile.

‘So,' said Arthur, clearing his throat, 'next week then. Assuming both of us show up.’

Merlin laughed. ‘Next week,’ he said, giving Arthur a mock-serious frown. ‘No excuses.’

Arthur waved Merlin goodbye, and watched as he walked down the steps to the ticket barrier. It was too late to go back to Uther’s. The apartment, even though it was less than five minutes walk away, had never been any sort of an option. Cold suddenly, he pulled his collar up and headed off in search of a hotel for the night.

~~~

Uther had noticed a definite change in his son over the last few weeks. His routine hadn't altered that much, but he seemed more upbeat about it; more of a participant than a bystander. From the timing alone, Uther imagined that the group had something to do with it, but it was difficult to get information out of Arthur, so he kept his observations to himself. Even so, he had heard in passing at Leon and Morgana's, when he and Arthur had trooped over for their obligatory Sunday lunch, that he'd bumped into a friend of his during a recent trip with the children.

Arthur had looked a little tense when the conversation had turned to the trip, no doubt because knew what a big deal this excursion was but he didn't want it made into one.

Tactfully, Uther changed the subject to recent developments at his surgery, which got Morgana interested since she and Leon ran their own practice a few towns away. It left Arthur at the tender, but less inquisitive, mercies of the children.

As he was swept off to the garden to help then re-enact a scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark, Arthur threw his father a grateful glance followed by a resigned, comical sort of grin that Uther hadn't seen in a long while.

~~~

'How's the group going?' Uther asked Arthur as they drove back to his house.

'Not bad,' Arthur said. 'It has its dire moments but it's ... actually not that awful. I'm going to keep going.'

'Do you fancy coming to the surgery with me tomorrow?' Uther asked, hoping he wasn't pushing his luck. 'There're a few bits and pieces that could do with sorting out.'

'Actually,' Arthur said, 'I was going to go into work.'

Uther raised his eyebrows at that but didn’t say anything. As much as he wanted to know what had prompted Arthur, he knew that a misplaced comment at this stage might jeopardise the tentative steps his son was taking.

'I need to look up some records for a friend,' Arthur volunteered, after a few minutes. 'So I thought I might as well see what's been going on.'

'Fair enough,' said Uther, as he pulled into the drive.

~~~

‘Where do you think you're going?’ said Will. He was Sophia had arrived just as Merlin was leaving his apartment building. They were carrying something that smelt suspiciously like home-cooked food.

‘It’s Tuesday night,’ said Merlin. ‘Where do you think I’m going?’

‘I thought you stopped going to that group,' said Will.

'It was only one week I didn't go,' Merlin said, 'and I only didn't fancy it because of someone there, but that’s okay now.'

‘Eh?’ said Will, as he and Soph exchanged a confused look. ‘Who?’

‘Arthur,’ Merlin mumbled.

‘Arthur?’ Will said, who had known Merlin since school. ‘As in Wanker Arthur? He's there? And you’re still going back?’

‘All that was a long time ago,’ said Merlin, feeling pleased at how normal he made the words sound. ‘I ran into him last Tuesday, when I was at the British Museum, and we kind of cleared the air. We’re friends now. Or at least that’s the plan. '

Another meaningful glance. It was painful, sometimes, watching the pair of them flounder about.

‘You just ran into him?' said Soph. 'Maybe it's a sign.' And then, because she set far too much stock in coincidences, she raised her eyebrows in what Merlin assumed was a mysterious manner.

‘What, a sign that we both like the same museum?’ said Merlin, who had stopped believing in signs and destiny and all of that a long time ago. 'Yeah, practically unheard of.'

~~~

As he drove towards the town, Merlin tried not to let what Soph had said get under his skin. It wasn't her fault. She and Will both thought his unwillingness to look for someone else was a guilty reaction to Freya’s death, and though he did feel some responsibility, and perhaps it had been the final deciding factor in the way he'd chosen to live his life now, there was so much else in between that they didn’t know, so much else that Merlin kept to himself and carried around with him.

And now there was Arthur to add to the equation, and how after twenty years of ignoring one other, they were back in each other's lives.

For a long time, it had felt like Arthur had ruined him for anybody else, and Merlin had blamed him exclusively for the ongoing disaster that had been his personal life. It had taken several difficult periods of hard, uncomfortable reflection for Merlin to conclude that Arthur was far from the whole story. He knew now that even if things had worked out between the two of them, there would still have been this great unknown quantity, this secret that Merlin had never trusted anyone enough to share - not his mother, not Will, certainly not anyone else.

It had been painful, but eventually he had accepted that even if Arthur hadn't ended their relationship the way he had, given the sorts of revelations Merlin had been considering sharing with him, the fragile, tentative thing that had sprung up between them would have been as good as over anyway.

Luckily, he thought, as he reached the community hall car park, that particular episode in his life was unlikely to come under the spotlight at the group sessions, and he had no doubt that Arthur would want to keep it that way too.

Taking all of that into account, it was good to see Arthur again, and friends was fine. Really, it was. Under the circumstances, it was probably the best he could have hoped for.

~~~

After running into each other at the museum, Arthur and Merlin fell into a pattern of going to the group on Tuesday and grabbing a drink or a meal afterwards. On the weeks that one of them couldn't make it, they usually caught up over the phone or by email. On the weeks when he didn't see Merlin, Arthur found that he talked more about himself, and it crossed his mind that on the weeks he couldn't come, Merlin might be doing the same thing.

Although it didn't quite fit with the purpose of the group, Arthur viewed that as a minor inconvenience; he was prepared to put up with far more in order that they get to know one another again, and at the back of his mind, there was the thought that even though Merlin didn't want to talk about their past, Arthur might still have the chance to prove himself as a friend, and make things right.

Tonight, however, was a night when they were both at the group. Merlin had arrived first, and was sitting down already, reading a book. It didn't take long for him to look up and wave Arthur over, folding a page to mark his place, and slipping the book into his jacket pocket.

‘How did you meet your ex?’ one of the others asked Arthur about halfway through the session. They had been talking about chance meetings turning into something more. It was a topic, Arthur noticed, that Merlin had very little to say about.

‘Gwen? We met in a pub. June '95, Monday night I think,’ said Arthur. ‘I’d just come back from six months in Peru. I'd been in London for a week, and I was due to fly back the next day. Me and the rest of the team were in this tiny little pub, called, um, The Harp, or something, all a little bit worse for wear. They must have started leaving for the hotel, one by one, as I remember looking around at one point and realising it was just me left, and this girl sitting on the table next to me.'

There was an interested murmur across the hall. Arthur sneaked a look across at Merlin who was scrutinising a cuticle with near ferocious intent. ‘After a while,’ he continued, ‘we got talking and I managed to persuade her to give me her number.’

‘So you liked her from the start then?’ the same man as before. Arthur thought he might be called Gary.

Arthur nodded. ‘I liked her from the start,’ he said, 'and six months later, when I got back to England, I called her and managed to persuade her to go on a date with me.'

He paused to draw breath, and someone else chimed in with a similar story of chance and coincidence. Flooded with old memories, Arthur was happy to let the natural drift of the conversation move on.

There was far more to the story of him and Gwen than the few details he'd just divulged. It was true that they had met in a bar and - by some miracle - she had remembered who he was when he called her up six months later. What he hadn’t said was that when he’d first seen her she’d been doing a terrible job of holding back tears, and in his clumsy, cider-tinged attempts to comfort her, she’d ended up dissolving into near hysterics and telling him all about her newly ex-boyfriend Lance and how he had no ambition and no drive and how she’d dumped him and she was just fucking heartbroken about it.

Gwen’s vision had been too blurred by tears and drink to notice that Arthur had been on the verge of a similar admission. But definitely not tears. Earlier in the evening, he’d looked away briefly from the laughing and joking at his table, and had glimpsed someone tall and willowy, with short, dark hair and pale, pale skin, just slipping out of the door. Without any warning, his stomach dropped and he felt the air burning around him. He'd been halfway across the bar before he'd even realised he was on his feet, but by the time he'd got to the door, the man had gone. After half an hour of searching, he returned to the bar and sat, brooding into his pint, his team buzzing and happy around him, and reflected that if this was all it took to take him back to where he had been a few years before, then time was no fucking healer at all.

His team had dispersed not long after, and when he'd seen Gwen, her business suit in disarray, he'd turned to her. It was when she'd started to talk, the near-grief pouring off her, Arthur felt something like recognition. As he listened to her catalogue of disappointments, of Lance's shortcomings, of all the things she'd wanted him to be, but he wasn't, Arthur thought, through a blanket of drunkenness and his own regret: I could be that. I could be that, for you.

There was something else as well: Whilst Gwen might not have known what Arthur was feeling, she sensed it, and after she had finished pouring her heart out to him, she looked him in the eyes, and gently touched the side of his face.

‘You’ve lost someone too, haven’t you?’ she said. Arthur nodded. It was funny; he had never told her, through the course of their entire relationship, who it was that he'd lost, and she had never asked.

But Gwen had understood what he was feeling without needing to know why, and he'd felt an overwhelming need to hold onto that. It was probably why he'd asked her for her number. Thinking about how things had turned out, it kind of made sense.

After the pub shut, he made sure Gwen was safely in a cab and stumbled back to the hotel with her number safely in his wallet. He fell asleep promptly, but he had little control over his dreams, of long, pale fingers tracing along his collarbone, and soft lips brushing the vulnerable skin of his hip, and had woken confused and panicked and glad he was leaving London that morning.

Arthur didn't say any more for the rest of the session, content for others to sift through their own circumstances and expectations, and listen to them try to make the pieces fit after the fact. Merlin was quiet too, except for the rumbling of his stomach, a sound that Arthur had discovered, over the past few weeks, meant he'd skipped lunch and possibly breakfast too.

'Fancy pizza?' Merlin asked, as everyone got ready to go. 'I'm bloody starving.'

~~~

'I used to work in a pub called The Harp, about a year or so before I qualified,' Merlin said, as casually as he could manage. 'D'you think it was the same place you met Gwen? '

'Pretty sure that was the name,' Arthur said, looking a shade paler at the information. 'It was in Covent Garden.'

'Same one then,' Merlin said. 'Funny that. Hey,' he said, looking up from his menu and flashed Arthur a quick smile, 'thanks for those records you looked up for me. I'm still working my way through them all.'

'No problem,' Arthur said. 'Are you looking something in particular?'

'It varies,' said Merlin. 'Usually I just want to find out if the pieces are genuine.'

Merlin expected Arthur to assume he meant that the pieces weren’t fakes, but to his surprise, Arthur said: 'Genuinely magical?'

Merlin gave Arthur a crooked grin and raised his eyebrows to let Arthur know he knew he was messing around. 'How's work going?' he said.

'I've gone in a few times,' Arthur said. 'I thought I wouldn't fit in when I did, and,' he paused and shrugged, 'I don't really feel like I do, yet, even though it's been more than a year.'

Arthur had never said why, exactly, he found returning to work so difficult, but the few comments he'd let slip in the weeks before suggested that his priorities had been different prior to his and Gwen's break up. There were a few stray elements that remained, from which Merlin had built up an impression of what the old Arthur had been like: his expectations of what he should be doing, where he should be with his life, what he should have achieved, have owned, have possessed, have amounted to. It was the sense of constant comparison that came out sometimes, in passing, that told its own tale about Arthur's former life when he seemed unable to articulate it himself.

'You've got to give yourself time,' Merlin said, tucking into his final slice of pizza and eyeing Arthur's plate. 'Starting slowly might be what works.'

'I suppose,' Arthur said. 'What about you? Have your friends stopped bugging you yet?'

'I fucking wish,' Merlin said, and in his hurry to shovel food into his mouth, he completely missed the look of annoyance that crossed Arthur's face. 'But they'll stop eventually, I guess. They seem to think I can't take care of myself.'

'Well they might be onto something,' Arthur said, with a smug expression on his face, 'since the evidence seems to suggest you don't seem able to feed yourself. I could hardly hear for your bloody stomach earlier.'

'Oh, spare me,' Merlin said. 'As if you're in any position to lecture me on looking after myself. If I remember correctly, I had to show you how to boil water for pasta.'

'Well, I've moved on a bit from then,' Arthur said, depositing a large slice of his pizza onto Merlin's plate. 'The sort of line of work I'm in, being stuck in the middle of nowhere as a matter of course sort of makes you self-sufficient.'

'I'll believe that when I see it,' said Merlin, laughing it off, but privately it had been another surprise. Arthur could take care of himself now, but he hadn't always been like that. Almost as soon as they'd met, Merlin had felt an innate need to take care of him, and Arthur, who had barely been able to function without his father and sister, had let Merlin do it. What he hadn't known about were the shortcuts that Merlin had often taken to tidy his room, or organise his papers, or make sure he'd eaten.

It had been one of Merlin's more unfathomable worries - after Arthur had cut off all contact with him - just how he was going to learn to exist as a normal human without help, and Merlin couldn't help feeling a little flash of something close to sadness when it appeared that he'd learnt very well.

'Believe it when you come over on Sunday,' Arthur said. 'I'm cooking, and I'm going to make a far better job of it than Morgana and Leon ever do.'

'Want a lift back?' Arthur asked as they left the restaurant. Merlin had walked there that evening, needing the silence and the exercise after a busy meeting that afternoon.

It only took a few minutes to get back to his apartment building. It probably should have taken longer, but Arthur still drove like a maniac.

'I'd ask you in, but it's a complete shit tip in there right now.' Merlin said, as they drew up outside.

Arthur rolled his eyes. 'Really Merlin? That's not changed? You surprise me.'

'Well, I'm still not convinced you can do anything but ruin good food,' Merlin said.

Arthur smirked. 'I told you: come on Sunday and watch my genius at work.'

There were probably a few hundred things Merlin wanted to do more than spend what promised to be an awkward couple of hours with Arthur's father and sister, and the rest of his family, but under Arthur's intense, unwavering gaze, he couldn't quite think of a reason to say no.

'See you begging Morgana to do it all for you, more like,' he said, unlocking his seatbelt, but not before Arthur gave him a friendly shove.

'Fuck off out of my car then,' he said. 'See you Sunday.'

Merlin let himself out of the car and walked up one flight of stairs to his apartment. He switched a lamp on and went over to his living room window. Just before he pulled the curtains shut, he looked out and saw that Arthur's car was still parked across the road. Just as he pulled away, Arthur looked up at the window and gave Merlin a wave. Merlin hesitated briefly, and as he waved back, he felt something uncoil and burn through him. The feeling was so intense that for a second it overwhelmed him.

The streetlights dimmed briefly, and then came back on again.

'Fuck,' Merlin muttered. 'Fuck.'

It had been years since he'd let his magic get out of control like that.

Part Two