A/N: Oh. Oh, look, the angst tag seems to apply to this one! Because my muse seems to take anything 'I haven't done' as a personal challenge, and because so many people seem to consider Merlin's immortality a punishment, (and because I'm currently between multi-chapter projects) we had to write this one. Merlin through-the-ages, Arthur pov.

About Time

Through it all, Arthur watches.

Across the ages, through tears and screams, through smiles and exhaustion and blood, through friendship and consolation and love and more tears, through darkness and despair and the endless heavy cycle of seasons… Arthur watches.

It begins the moment Merlin touches Arthur for the last time, there in the boat. Rest in peace, spoken in magic and sorrow.

Already he is watching, standing there in the shallows which made no rings around legs that stay dry, on the opposite side of his own funeral craft. Watching as his manservant – sorcerer – friend – releases his body to the boat, to the lake, to the unknown and invisible depths. To the heights of heaven or the bowels of the earth or somewhere in-between.

Avalon. A place or a concept or both.

He sees tears in Merlin's eyes, and doesn't try to speak because the moment is exquisitely fragile, and though he is new to this, already he knows that his friend can't see him. Won't hear him. These are the first tears of many, those twin diamonds poised against that fathomless blue. A veritable sea of emotion.

Arthur sees grief – sorrow and loss and loneliness and regret and guilt – and it's only the beginning. Only the first bitter taste of a bottomless draught.

He watches Merlin struggle, that first lifetime. The pain is near, and the memories are both sharp and fond, but the gradually-accumulating years still lie lightly on the shoulders slightly bowed under the familiarly worn brown jacket. When there are still friends who know. Who remember, also.

Arthur watches Merlin take comfort, in those years. His friend still smiles, in those years.

Then he watches as Merlin realizes what he himself vehemently denies, when he questions his keepers. How long? Will I go to him, or will he come to me?

He watches Merlin deny and yet absorb the incontrovertible answer, also.

Neither. Never.

He watches Merlin slowly cease to reject the truth and meaning and opportunity and horror of Emrys. Tears wet Arthur's cheeks then also, during that time, silent and without solace.

It is Merlin's reward – the hope of reunion. The second chance. It is Merlin's punishment also – Arthur can't help but see it like that, though no one here ever terms it so – to wait without knowing. Without being able to see the end. A race with no finish line; no signs to search for, like the turning of the leaves or the melting of the snow.

Later, when history becomes legend becomes myth, there is no one left even to encourage Merlin that his belief, his hope, is not delusion. There is only the fact of life inexhaustible. Death ever elusive.

That is Arthur's reward, then, to see his friend. He is granted the perception of drawing near, almost to touching, the relief of releasing his own emotion verbally, his eyes fully upon the person he speaks to – abuse and encouragement and truth and secrets. But it is Arthur's punishment also, that never can Merlin share that perception. Never see him, never hear or feel or answer him.

And when despair and doubt occasionally creep upon Merlin unaware, close enough finally to take him captive from behind – cold dark smoky tendrils unnoticeable til they are inescapable – when he rocks upon whatever bed he is using at the time and squeezes his knees into his collarbones and sobs. When he screams and grips fistfuls of his hair hard enough to loose a few strands and can't breathe for the agony of loneliness.

Then it is Arthur's reward to whisper encouragement – his punishment that it will not be heard.

Understanding, it is explained to him. Comprehension and recognition. In life, he had constantly overlooked and underestimated his servant. He'd seen but the surface, infrequently disturbed by a ripple that was easily disregarded again. It mattered not whose fault it had been, all the secrets that drew the veil between them in their first lifetime – Uther, Arthur, Gaius, Merlin himself. Morgana and every enemy sorcerer.

Arthur had not known his friend. His guardian angel, once acknowledged in words… but only once. And never recognized.

So now, he watches. And learns. Now, he is Merlin's guardian angel, though he can't see that it does his friend any good. He can't effect protection for his powerful sorcerer – not that he needs it physically, except from himself – or offer tangible soothing comfort for his spirit. He can't hear any advice Arthur gives, no matter how loudly he shouts or how quietly he whispers, no matter what words he uses.

He watches Merlin find purpose and work hard. Help and heal and build and serve and achieve – and fight – until it feels like his chest will burst with pride in his friend, and he wonders how he ever could have thought his servant lazy.

Sometimes he watches Merlin withdraw. Watches him choose oblivion in so many substances, changing with the years – solid, liquid, vapor – that he himself loses count. Then, he watches silently. There is sorrow that he feels also, deep and limitless and nearly unbearable, and compassion very close to pity, but no blame. Merlin is very strong, and tries very hard not to change, but he is only human, after all.

So to speak.

He watches certain men, whose character inevitably reminds him of his closest knights, come alongside Merlin in friendship. Like Lancelot with enduring compassion, like Gwaine with persistent cheer. Like Percival with indefatigable patience and Elyan with dependable calm and Leon with stalwart devotion. He wishes, when these times come to an end and Merlin says goodbye again, that he could meet these men and thank them.

But he is not in the same place as that to which the ordinary dead travel.

Sometimes, he misses the others, too. Especially Guinevere, widowed so young and ruling so wisely alone. But they all have each other, where they are, and he has only, always Merlin. And Merlin has no one.

Sometimes, Merlin has someone. And then Arthur looks away, when Merlin shares his bed with a woman, by accident or design – hers or his – for a night or for a generation. He respects his friend's privacy in those times, but he also comes to know, very early on, that the vulnerability of the dark and the surrender and the emotion of the act of physical love and connection, more often than not prove too much for Merlin's fragile defensive composure. Often Merlin weeps in the aftermath of these moments, and Arthur never watches to see which women try to understand or comfort, which turn away, which Merlin hides himself from, before the dam breaks.

There are never any children, though. For whatever reason. Arthur can't tell whether Merlin considers this a blessing, or a curse. But there are never any children.

Arthur watches Merlin handle the blades, sometimes when he is alone and the end of his rope forms a hangman's noose. Even after proving over and over that they cannot grant him death. He watches him inflict pain on himself, on his body, his movements patient and almost distant, freeing the blood to trickle over his skin, drip earthward, warm though Arthur cannot feel the temperature or the wet.

He understands that it seems the only distraction or easement possible from the desperate unending misery inside. He knows, because he feels it himself – only he has no body to cut and mar and punish, and he himself always turned those feelings outward in active rage to exorcise. When Merlin passes out, Arthur touches the torn flesh, yet unfeeling, and watches his friend's body close itself, sealing life within the vessel, hiding the evidence of pain once again. Although, without really healing.

Sometimes he watches Merlin hurl himself into several days' coma-sleep, with enough drugs to kill several times over. And then wake, eventually. Every time.

He watches Merlin wake from countless nightmares that betray an ordinary night's sleep, screaming into the dark. Begging. Cursing. Apologizing.

Begging again.

Often, Arthur finds himself echoing the sentiments, feeling the pain as he can't really feel anything else, even though he is not acknowledged either.

Very rarely - and only on the one night when the old year dies and the new is born, when even the veil between Emrys and his lost king thins – when he speaks, Merlin lifts his head. He cocks it slightly to one side – whether his hair is black and shaggy or shorn or bleached or unwashed or spelled to gray like his beard – and sometimes looks around the room. Sometimes Merlin speaks also, in the quiet and exhaustion of the unique and dreadful burden he cannot even choose to put down. Arthur answers him, always, moves to place himself wherever Merlin's eyes land.

Arthur promises. Always. Though he doesn't know when or even if he will be able to keep these promises.

Sometimes it seems to comfort Merlin, to relax him. And sometimes he stands and goes for another bottle, to fog his perception unmercifully. Very rarely, he smiles and keeps speaking until he falls asleep at last. Sometimes, he smiles in his sleep.

Merlin walks beside the lake, occasionally, in one guise or another, and Arthur – though he watches as centuries pass - cannot figure what causes him to go, or what keeps him away.

He learns and accepts how this existence does and does not work, what he can and cannot do, but always he walks beside Merlin, beside the lake. His legs never get tired and his feet never get sore and neither of them ever say anything, though sometimes Merlin halts at a certain point, as if helpless to resist. And sometimes he looks over the water.

Sometimes Arthur slings an arm over his shoulder as they walk the shore, though neither of them actually touch the other. He comes to recognize when this seems to help his lonely companion – and when it doesn't.

Arthur watches changes come and go. In Merlin, and in the world around. He experiences progress with Merlin, feels the same wonder and amused disbelief and disappointment. Feels the impatience, always.

I want to stop watching, and start sharing. All of it, good bad indifferent.

Not yet, he is always told. Not yet.

Until he wishes for his sword and a corporeal hand to wield it. An enemy – or just the semblance of one – to batter until surrender is forced and he gets his way. Because there is no other way to effect his will; it takes Arthur a very long time to accept that. It is not in his nature to admit helplessness.

And one night, when Merlin is motionless in oblivion, tangled on and in his bed, and Arthur moves about the dim room, passing his hand over and through Merlin's clutter – because some things, after all, never change – he tips a bottle over.

One of pills, this time, and nearly empty.

Arthur doesn't question it. Doesn't initially give it much thought, in case it's an anomaly, and doesn't last. Simply picks up the bottle and disposes of it with other discarded garbage.

Then he carries on cleaning, whimsically reflecting on the turnabout of roles and feeling almost privileged to provide the care for his friend. Maybe for the sheer novelty of being able to touch and move even inanimate objects, again - things thrown away, things taken to another room for easier cleaning, things organized.

Even, he straightens the sheets and blanket on the bed as much as he can around the body of his friend, feeling very paternal to do so. Merlin mumbles at the disturbance and rolls, still sprawled, face mashed into a flat pillow and probably drooling.

When Arthur sits, the mattress depresses beneath him. He takes a moment to note that his body feels unusually heavy, even tired, after millennia in Avalon, and when his stomach pinches he laughs to realize it for hunger, another sensation almost-forgotten.

Merlin mumbles something that sounds like a question. He often talks in his sleep.

"Nothing," Arthur answers, as he sometimes does, hazarding a guess to interpret. "I'm just hungry." Isn't it glorious. And silly. And perfect.

"Y're always hungry, 'Rthur," his friend slurs. And another word that just might be fat – or maybe prat - but Arthur ignores that.

He scoots down in the bed so the extra pillow is bunched under his head – plenty of room for two, and far better than many a night they'd spent out-of-doors, on the ground and huddling together for warmth. Sleep whispers a siren's song, novel and sweet and strange to contemplate, and he knows he's going to succumb, himself. In a moment.

"Merlin," he whispers, and his friend grunts in less-than-half-awake reply. "I want you to know, I was always with you. I know what you've been through. I felt your pain and I saw your courage, my friend. I don't know what the future holds for us, but… I am with you, now."

Merlin sighs and rolls back to the middle of the bed, where his raised forearm lies alongside Arthur's upper arm, and his bent knee nudges the side of Arthur's. Once, it would have been uncomfortable for him, embarrassing for Merlin to wake and realize.

Except, he feels a calm and a surrender more complete and natural than any Merlin has experienced since they last touched. Not the strongest of narcotics, not the most extreme exertions, had ever achieved this effect, for his friend – the waiting is over, though Merlin doesn't yet consciously comprehend it.

In the morning, he thinks, Merlin is going to be angry that Arthur hadn't woken him immediately. Well-rested, but furious. In the morning, there will be shouting and crying and – yes, even hugging. There will be sunrise and breakfast.

In the meantime, Arthur relishes the contact and tactile proof of this new truth that is far beyond any reward. Something solemn, even holy.

Two sides, reunited.

"T'ss," Merlin sighs, " 'bout time."

Arthur snorts softly. Then, drifting toward slumber, he closes his eyes.

A/N: This, in a humble way, in memory of today. 9/11.

I rather prefer a version of Merlin's waiting that involves unconscious rest, not the living awareness of waiting and time passing. Because there is so much time, and so many experiences, it's difficult to write specifically when that sort of immortality is a given. It's hard to get into what that would do to a person's psyche.

And, there is the problem of returning!Arthur, how he'd adjust to a modern lifestyle, how on earth he and Merlin could/would be close after so much time spent apart…

So here's me trying to reconcile this stuff! And appease a muse hijacked; now that the short crazy ride is over, I can get back in the driver's seat…