Disclaimer: Merlin is not mine.

As it turned out, the smile that had taken to Merlin's face when Gwaine had voiced his willingness to provide whatever assistance was necessary for whatever Merlin was planning on doing was not one of reassurance, as Gwaine had hoped and believed. As he sat back down on the bed, slightly dizzied by the pace with which Merlin had begun pacing about Arthur's chambers, he realized that it had been a smile of an increasingly manic nature. It didn't help that Merlin had spent the previous five minutes filled with what he clearly believed was valuable and helpful knowledge, speaking swiftly and strangely tonelessly.

"Good. I'm glad. Thank you," said Merlin, despite the fact that Gwaine had not provided any answer to the most recent question.

"Merlin, could you sit down please? I'm getting a headache."

Merlin either didn't hear him or didn't have the nerve to deviate from his purpose of apparently giving Gwaine as much information with the fewest amount of inhalations as was physically possible. If anything, he began to pace faster. "You're going to have to be the one to tell Gwen. That's not going to be any pleasant task, so I'm sorry. This might be a case of blaming the messenger."

Gwaine closed his eyes for a moment, enjoying the static darkness of the inside of his eyelids as a contrast to Merlin's frantic trek throughout the rooms that he knew so well.

"Why me?" he finally asked, opening his eyes again.

Merlin actually looked at and answered him this time, which Gwaine supposed could be considered progress. "Well, if Arthur or I did it, she'd probably find a way to stop us. I mean, I'm a sorcerer and Arthur is the greatest warrior in the five kingdoms—sorry, one of the greatest warriors in the five kingdoms—but I swear to you that she would somehow find a way to keep at least one of us here, through any means necessary in all likelihood, so neither of us can be the one to tell her what—"

Gwaine shook his head. "Not that. Why are you telling me all of this? I'm not complaining about being kept in the loop this time, but if there's all this stuff that Gwen needs to know, wouldn't it be easier to explain it to her? I'm sure she'd understand eventually."

Merlin suddenly stopped pacing, and it took Gwaine a few seconds for him to train his eyes on the solitary and immobile figure in front of him. He had grown so accustomed to Merlin's furious path throughout the room that his eyes kept following, even as the figure had stopped. It was a very strange feeling. Welcome, but strange.

"Oh," said Merlin, sounding almost surprised at the question. "Because I can trust you."

Well, that just didn't make a whole lot of sense. Gwaine could not deny that Merlin would be entirely correct to trust Gwaine; but the implications that he was the only person that Merlin ought to trust in Camelot seemed…off. "You can't trust the queen?"

"No, I can," said Merlin, so immediately that Gwaine could not doubt him, and shook his head. "It's just you because…"

He trailed off and, despite the apparent urgency of the situation, Gwaine's interest was too piqued to leave this line of questioning alone. "Because what?"

"Gwaine, I really need to get going, so if you don't mind, I'm just going to leave now and—"

Gwaine almost rolled his eyes. "Merlin."

Merlin began pacing again, although thankfully with less ridiculous speed. "Fine! It's because of…listen, do you remember that day in the council chamber, after I set it on fire?"

Was he serious?

"No, Merlin. It has completely slipped my mind. Please, refresh my memory."

Merlin waved the comment away, although he did look somewhat abashed. "Okay, stupid question. But, do you remember how, when I got rid of the fire room and Arthur and I came out and everyone was looking at me like I was some kind of murderous freak? How even Arthur looked as though he was one more spark away from having me gored with a spear and washing his hands of me entirely? How all of the knights in the room but two had their crossbows aimed at my heart from the instant that they remembered that they were armed and trained to kill?"

Where was Merlin going with this? It couldn't have been any more enjoyable a recollection for him than it was for Gwaine.

"I remember."

Merlin nodded and continued. "And how Sir Leon had just about burned his leg to the bone and was reeling in agony and likely to be crippled unless he was treated immediately, but still refused to let me help, even though he knew that if I did it, I could undo it?"

"Yes…" Gwaine had nearly cold-shouldered Leon for that refusal; the only thing that had stopped him was that Leon had relented and that Leon still was in plenty of physical pain with which Gwaine had certainly been able to relate. Being snubbed by Gwaine just didn't seem fair at that point. Nor would he have gotten much enjoyment out of it, he imagined.

Merlin kept speaking. Gwaine had the impression that this was something that Merlin had been wanting to say for quite some time. "And how nobody in the entire room knew what the hell was going on and all that they knew for sure was that sorcerers were evil and I was a sorcerer and I had just trapped their king inside of a terrible room of fire and how I had just—even indirectly—wounded two of the greatest knights in all of Camelot and how every single bit of evidence pointed to me being evil and a spy and a traitor?"

"Yes…"

Merlin half-smiled, looking distant and no longer looking Gwaine in the eye. "And then there was you, with your own arm burned half off because of a spell that I had cast, in so much pain that you were on the verge of passing out, as far as I could tell, with all of that evidence of my evilness in front of you, all of the evidence that had even led Arthur to cast me away in fear. And you laughed and asked me to help you and told me funny stories like it was any other day and you'd just scratched yourself experimenting with some new move during training and that everything was still normal and nothing had changed while my world was collapsing around me? And how you stayed by my side, even though you were hurt, just to make sure that the other knights didn't try to do anything to me while Arthur took his damn time before deciding to send me to the dungeons? How you still saw your friend rather than the sorcerer when you should have, by all rights and reason, been calling for my head?"

For a moment, Gwaine couldn't speak.

"I remember."

He did. He just hadn't known that Merlin had remembered. That had been kind of an eventful month for him. He'd figured that Merlin had had more important things to remember about that day.

Merlin met Gwaine's gaze once more. "That is why you are the only one that I am telling that we are leaving and that is why, even though Arthur ordered me to tell no one and to just leave a note for Gwen to explain what the hell we're off to do, I'm telling you. And that is why I didn't say goodbye the first time that I left. I knew that you would do something stupid like offer to come with me or follow me, and I couldn't bring you into exile with me just because I had gotten myself banished."

He did not speak anymore, and Gwaine looked down at the floor. He had thought that he did not need to know why Merlin had left without saying goodbye. He had thought that it wouldn't do any good and that he felt like his forgiveness could be more absolute if he did not have to hear the extent of the crime against him. He hadn't thought that it would make a difference.

It did.

Gwaine sniffed. Then, he realized something.

"Merlin!"

Merlin seemed taken aback by the sharpness in Gwaine's voice, such a contrast to how they had been conversing only seconds before. "What?"

"You just said that you were telling me all about why you were leaving."

"Yes..?"

"You haven't told me anything!"

"Hey, I said that I was in a hurry!"

"Are you being deliberately vague?"

"No! Okay, here. I'll give you the condensed version. Arthur's been summoned away, and while Arthur doesn't usually respond well to summons, this isn't really one that he can toss at me and tell me to find a semi-tactful way to refuse. So we're going as soon as we can get our affairs in order." Merlin shrugged as though he had explained everything perfectly.

Gwaine chose to ignore the final sentence, which sounded far too much like they were planning for this trip to conclude in a manner far more final than did their usual harebrained missions. Instead, he latched on to the first inconsistency in Merlin's explanation.

"You said that Arthur has been summoned."

"Yes?" Merlin sounded as though he was confused as to where Gwaine was going with this, and Gwaine only just avoided sighing in exasperation. They did not have time for exasperation.

"Why are you going?"

Merlin just stared at him uncomprehendingly for a few moments longer. Then, finally understanding, he laughed, almost bitterly and almost in amusement. "You know, I don't think either of us really thought that I wouldn't. I even read the summons before Arthur did, although that's partly just because he was being lazy. Besides, he's going to want me to be there for reasons other than company and my ability to use flint without breaking my fingers in the attempt. He might not know it yet, but he will."

Gwaine crossed his arms over his chest. "And what reason would that be? Why would he need you other than to counteract his general inability to do menial tasks for himself?"

Merlin hesitated, looking as though he was not sure how to convey his meaning without going into too elaborate and lengthy an explanation of what he was off to do. "Look at it this way, Sir Gwaine. If you're going to fight fire, you need fire. If you're going to fight a swordsman, you need a sword. If you're going to joust, you need a horse and a lance. If you're facing an archer from afar, you need a shield and a crossbow. If you're going to stab, you need a dagger."

"Yes…"

Gwaine would have laughed at Merlin's examples of combat situations, given his notorious general lack of battle prowess in the past, but considering his years of fetching gear and fitting armor for Arthur, Merlin probably knew more about the logistics of a good fight than the majority of Arthur's knights. Plus, he was too busy trying to figure out what Merlin was trying to tell him to spare the time to laugh.

Merlin shrugged. "Well, where we're going? Arthur's going to need me."

Gwaine absorbed what Merlin was saying, and a jolt of fear ran through him. Merlin was still speaking somehow as though he was not planning on coming back and that, if he treated it casually enough, it wouldn't matter so much.

He felt Merlin's eyes on him, and he glanced back up at his friend, who looked as though he was gauging his reaction. Carefully. When Gwaine glared fiercely back at him, Merlin smiled, apparently pleased that Gwaine was saving any potential panic attacks for a point in the future when they were not so pressed for time.

Suddenly businesslike, Merlin reached into his pocket and pulled out a half-burned candle and threw it at Gwaine, who caught it. "Okay, make sure that you don't lose this. It's the only one in existence, and I know that sounds melodramatic, but it is, and I'd make another one, but I don't have time. I stole it from Gwen's chambers, so she'll be able to explain it to you. You're going to have to share. Sorry that it's purple—I could probably change the color quickly enough, but Gwen's going to be mad enough as it is, and for your sake, I don't want to push it."

Gwaine examined the purple candle in his rough hands. It looked like a plain, old, well-used candle. There were drips of hardened wax on the side, and the wick was black and burnt. From what he could see, there was nothing particularly special about it, but Merlin looked rather anxious as Gwaine picked at the tip with his fingernail, leaving a small but visible nick, so he figured that it had to have some function other than lighting a room. He also stopped picking at the wax.

He pocketed it. "Gwen knows?"

Merlin nodded, looking relieved that Gwaine wasn't asking too many questions.

He then tossed a scroll in Gwaine's direction, who caught it easily and looked down at the writing on the outside. It was clearly intended for Arthur. The parchment was crinkled and the lavender wax of the seal flaking off to the point of being entirely unrecognizable, as though the curl of the scroll had been rolled and unrolled and read and reread many times since it had arrived. He read it swiftly and, as he did, he felt his eyes grow very wide, and his body gave an involuntary shudder, as though it was trying to physically reject as impossible the contents of the message that had been sent to the king.

And then there was only one thing that he could possibly say. He didn't need to know more. Merlin's urgency was far more important than his own. Besides, what kind of rebellious knight would he be if he wasn't good at improvising on the unorthodox?

"Merlin?"

Merlin looked strangely apprehensive. "Yes?"

"Go."

Merlin gave a quick and grateful, almost respectful smile, nodded and began to check at his pockets. He then glanced around the room with the practiced eye of a man who probably knew every nook and cranny better than the man who inhabited it. Gwaine figured that he was checking to see if there was anything that needed to snag to take with them. It felt like a better option than Merlin taking one last look around the chambers that he'd spent so many hours cleaning, for the sake of nostalgia. Finally, apparently finding nothing worth picking up, Merlin turned and opened the heavy wooden door of Arthur's chambers. Through his anxiety, Gwaine was faintly grateful that Merlin was leaving the scroll with him. He had the feeling that he would be wanting to look it over another few dozen times. Guinevere would probably want some proof, anyway.

Then, before exiting the room to leave the citadel and its people behind, Merlin turned back to Gwaine once more, eyes filled with some sort of emotion that was too strong and too undiluted by any others than Gwaine could not for the life of him identify it.

"Oh, and Gwaine?" Merlin called out, determination concealed beneath the tremulousness of his voice.

"Yes, Merlin?"

Merlin gave a small smile. "Don't lose the candle."

And Merlin left, shutting the door behind him with such a bang that Gwaine suspected that Merlin must have used magic to slam it.

As the echoes of the bang faded away into the walls of Arthur's large and very empty chambers, Gwaine lay back on the bed once more, trying to process his thoughts. At that moment, however, as he clenched his hands around the scroll bearing the dark summons and the purple candle that he was not to lose, all that he could think of was how he hoped that these mysterious items would serve as tools in the secret battle to provide aid to Merlin and Arthur from afar, and not as mementos that would serve as souvenirs from friendships quenched too early and valuable lives lost in lands far away from home.

So Gwaine lay there, wearing the introspective look that greatly became him but which few people ever saw, and he hoped.

It was the best thing that he could do.

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The End!

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Thank you for reading! I know that this four-parter probably felt kind of useless and that it may not have added anything to the "universe" that I've created, but I thought that it might help me to give another perspective and friendly perspective of Arthur's and Merlin's leaving than I did in the end of "Comes Around." If there are any readers who are not familiar with "What Goes Around"/"Comes Around," thank you for sticking with this one, and I hope that it made even a little bit of sense.

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I would adore some reviews. They're very helpful, especially when I'm trying to motivate myself into planning out the sequel. :)

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Also, I'm going to include here a little preview for what to expect in the sequel, which I have tentatively titled "What Happened Before."

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Some things that will be showing up:

- The reappearance of certain characters from the show not yet included in any of my previous stories

- New narrators

- External antagonists—not just thematic or political

- More action in addition to my customary character study

- Merlin/Arthur roadtrip!

- Arthur/Dragon interactions

- Arthur learning more about Merlin's magic

- POVs in Camelot AND on the road

- Coming soon!

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I hope that you will come back for "What Happened Before!"