*SPOILERS FROM ALL THE SERIES*

The finale. I've never seen something as heartbreaking and as beautiful in my life. I can't believe it is all over and I can only be grateful for having being a part of such wonderful story. This fic will center in post S5 stuff, be it a reincarnation fic, a conversation that Merlin and Arthur never had, a talk between Gwen and Merlin or anything else that might tickle my fancy. So there will be spoilers all over this, be warned.

First, one angsty ( can there be any other word for this?) little one-shot post 5x13. Bromance, Gaius and Merlin bonding and Gwen and Merlin bonding. Might end in a sour note but I really don't believe Merlin would've stayed. Please keep a box of tissues close and enjoy. :)

An Uneaten Meal.

Gaius waited for three days.

Two bowls full of the steamiest soup had already gone cold upon the little wooden table. Despite his Queen's desperate attempts to find both Merlin and Arthur all of the patrols sent came back with empty hands. During those days Leon often offered the aged physician his silent support, sitting with him and staring wordlessly at the two bowls of soup long gone cold.

On the morning of the third day Merlin walked through the door.

Yet walking was not the word that Gaius would describe such action for it was underlined with such deep agony that he'd only seen that trembling steps on a dying man's last efforts to survive.

When Merlin raised his eyes to meet his and Gaius saw in the raw depths of them the broken side of him that no longer remained on this earth he knew. He knew and with the revelation came the sudden thought of just how much his dear boy was stumbling.

He was not yet up from the table when Merlin collapsed.

Never had Gaius felt panic like the one cursing through his veins as he knelt beside Merlin and gathered his boy's head into his lap, pushing back the damp dark hair and feeling for a pulse because, surely, Merlin could not die on him as well.

It was the terror, perhaps, or maybe the numbness what took over when the fluttering pulse Gaius felt was barely there and he screamed, screamed for anyone who would listen to his heart.

Leon was there before Gaius even knew and the knight was the one who helped him place Merlin on his old wooden bed, it was him who ran to tell the Queen and then came back with her hand between his, her eyes full of tears that were both of dimming hope and terror for what she might learn. She cried besides Merlin's bedside when Gaius told him what he'd read in the deep hollowness of Merlin's eyes. That his boy was no longer whole and the King was gone.

There, by Merlin's bedside, the Once and Future Queen let out the first tears of many, clutching Merlin's hand between her own and begging him to wake up because 'I can't lose you too Merlin.'

And in his heart, Gaius was begging his boy to hold on too.

He remained by Merlin's bedside even after Gwen was taken away by the call of duty and Leon informed everyone that Percival had returned with Gwaine, who'd lost his life for his king. He remained there, his heart on his throat, watching the way Merlin's face contorted in agony even in his sleep. He wondered briefly if Merlin had eaten during the past few days, three to be exact. Gaius knew he had not.

In the end, Merlin's eyes opened with the slowness that detonated an unwilling heart. He blinked up at the ceiling and then, without any sound or warning, slow tears began descending down his cheeks and he did not even attempt to dry them for it would be useless.

"Merlin." Gaius' voice was soft, unsure, in the quiet room. His boy did not look at him but sat on the bed, shoulders already shaking with silent sobs and not a second had gone by before the old physician found himself by Merlin's side, letting his boy lean down against his chest and cry there all of his impotence and pain.

He attempted to shush the legendary warlock even though he knew no words could ever be enough.

"When was the last time you ate, Merlin?" he asked, swallowing through the growing knot in his throat as he rubbed circles on Merlin's shaking back. "You're skin and bones, my boy."

"I don't remember." said Merlin's soft voice, damp with tears. "I fed Arthur all of the broth you gave me. He needed it more."

Another heartbreaking sob wracked Merlin's body and Gaius felt his heart broke at the sight.

"What happened Merlin?"

Merlin's hollow eyes shut tightly and he turned away from Gaius as if his mentor's honest concern had placed upon him another memory of soul-breaking loss.

And perhaps, Gaius thought, it was the truth. For whatever it was that he had awakened inside of Merlin it caused his ward pain like nothing he had ever seen.

He rested his hand on Merlin's head, willing his boy to stop hurting but knowing that, no matter how much he wished for it, nothing would ever take away from Merlin the hole that Arthur had left.

For Merlin was now a sundered coin.

"I told Arthur everything." said Merlin finally, his voice so low and faint that Gaius, even though his boy's head was right below his jaw, over his heart, had to lean closer to hear him. "I stayed with him and told him about the prophecy, about the times in which I saved his backside and never asked for anything in return. I told him about Balinor and Freya and-and about the coin. I told him that if he ever held me in any regard he should just take me now."

Merlin allowed Gaius to hold him tight against him as the old man's heart processed what he had just heard. He said nothing else as his mentor kissed the top of his head and murmured, in the softest whisper, "Oh, my boy…"

Memories passed through Gaius' mind and he turned to close his eyes, willing for them to just stop but yet…

How many times had he seen in Arthur's noble eyes the same shade of desperation and hollowness (diminished but nevertheless there) that now would forever replace the witty spark of Merlin's blue eyes? How many times had Arthur expressed, in a voice as low and rumbling as a thundering storm so that no one but Gaius could hear, concern for Merlin's well-being when his ward disappeared for days without end and something inside Arthur's heart sparked to life, proved correct later on when Merlin appeared and related the life-threatening adventures he'd had, describing with precision what Arthur had felt inside him while they were apart?

As he clutched the thin boy tight in his arms Gaius couldn't help but wonder what Arthur would have done were he the one living and Merlin the one torn away.

"I don't remember much after that." Merlin told him then, as if talking could somehow help with the never-ending pain. "I was half-dead by the time I finished and then- then I had a dream."

Gaius, Guinevere had said that day in the tents as they both tended the wounded; Whatever it is that Merlin went away to do I believe something's happened to him. This will sound strange but…but Arthur woke up saying Merlin's name last night and I've never seen him as frantic.

"Will was there." Merlin murmured in the same soft tone of a man enduring a mortal wound. "And so were Lancelot, Elyan and- and Gwaine. And my father and Freya. And….right beside me was Arthur."

A shudder trailed up Merlin's spine and his eyes, dead and hollow as a moonless night, sparked to life, if only for a mere moment as he pronounced Arthur's name and whatever memory he held inside his heart brought forth more fresh tears.

"He told me that he already knew everything, Gaius." Merlin said. But he never told his mentor how Arthur, no matter how incorporeal he had seemed, had crouched beside him in the middle of the heavenly scenery and told him with a trembling voice that he'd never deserved someone like his warlock to stand beside him, that he would never have enough to repay Merlin for his courage and devotion that, if he could, he would take Merlin with him because he knew the pain of being a sundered part of a coin, because he understood and felt the incomparable horror of being apart…

He never told Gaius of how Arthur thanked him for holding him in those last moments, of how much he regretted calling Merlin a coward when they last saw each other on that sun-bathed evening before the battle and said with a sympathetic light in his pale blue eyes that the only reason he'd done it was because he could not imagine spending his last minutes on earth without Merlin by his side.

'I didn't want to die alone.' Arthur's glorious figure had whispered in his ear, and it was as if he'd needed for Merlin to know that. 'You are and will always be the bravest man I've ever known Merlin. You are.'

'I needed you with me on that battlefield my friend. If only so that I could see you one last time before the end.'

He never told Gaius about Arthur's sun-like smile and eyes, about the radiance that came from every part of his glorious body, as if his golden heart now shone from the inside. He didn't mentioned how he'd bowed his head and cried and asked once again for death to take him and how Arthur's strong, calloused and warm hands grabbed the sides of his face when he tried to bury it in his friend's chest and let himself go. His King's glorious eyes glimmered with a hundred different thoughts as they burned holes in his, with that hypnotic gaze that could make the bravest of warriors back down in fear but that contained immeasurable affection when he fixed it on his warlock's tortured eyes.

'No, Merlin.'

"What then, Merlin?" asked Gaius, and it was as though his voice belonged to other time, other life in which Merlin was just a shadow of what he once had been and he barely heard it.

In his dream- though he'd always think it more than that for he knew in his heart that it was Arthur's doing, as one last desperate attempt to console him and aid him- he'd paid no heed to Arthur's words and closed his eyes, admitting that he could not go on.

'I need you Merlin.' Arthur had whispered, holding him with the same strength he'd held his King in Arthur's last moments, letting his cheek touch Merlin's hair and placing one warm and luminous hand in the base of Merlin's too thin neck. "It took me long enough but now I know that without you I am nothing. So don't you dare give up on me now you idiot. Because I'll need you to be there when it's my time to go back-'

Then he'd told Merlin with that low and commanding voice of his the last truth, the last sacrifice destiny was asking of him, trying to soothe his dear friend with his words after it dawned upon the warlock and it became an almost unbearable burden.

'You'll stay for me Merlin, you hear me?' Arthur had said, almost crushing him against his shoulder in an attempt to help him with the uncontrollable shudders that now wracked his too thin body. 'You'll stay and you'll live for me."

This glorious, majestic Arthur did not have to say it out loud. One glance into his father's eyes, standing respectfully aside, told him what he'd known in his heart since the beginning.

You are and you will always be.

'Do you know what you are asking of me Arthur?' he'd whispered into the warm, alive shoulder of his best friend. And Arthur had grasped his face between his hands once again and looked right into his eyes with those sky-blue eyes of his that now held within all the wisdom and light of bliss after death.

'I know, my friend.' The Once and Future King had said, leaning so that he could press his forehead to that of his other half, whispering in the faintest of voices. 'I'll remain here too, remember?'

Bonded together because of destiny and pulled apart because of fate. Merlin knew then that not even the bliss of being in peace could take from Arthur the same hollowness he felt, the same void that was now so wonderfully gone with Arthur's otherworldly eyes staring so deeply into his, and that his dear friend was to suffer the same fate as he did, not being able to go with him but staying on the other side of an invisible veil that separated and broke them both.

"Then Arthur told me that I was to wait for him Gaius." He told his mentor out-loud, closing his eyes again and willing himself not to break down as he spoke. "You do know what Emrys means do you? It means immortal."

Gaius stiffened and his hold became almost crushing when Merlin's words reached him.

"Merlin…."

When the full truth had first dawned on him he'd shaken his head almost frightfully; trying to turn his gaze away from Arthur's commanding eyes. 'I can't do it, Arthur. I can't.'

'Merlin, look at me. Just look at me.'

But he could hardly look at Arthur through his tears and suddenly it was not only Arthur but also Freya, his father, Elyan, Lancelot and Gwaine; all of them surrounding him as if they were trying to give him strength through the light of their eyes…

'Mate, you are being awfully emotional about this.' Gwaine had commented with that cheery grin of his.

If he'd being in any less catatonic state then Merlin would've laughed at the exasperated look Lancelot gave his fellow knight and Elyan's low and rumbling, 'Shut the hell up, Gwaine.'

But Arthur, who was always irritated by Gwaine's antics, did not even spare a glance at his brave knight, choosing instead to hold his warlock's gaze with his own as he pressed a hand to his friend's neck, as if he's attention was devoted to Merlin and Merlin only.

'It's going to be alright, Merlin.' said Lancelot, he, too, stayed behind, as if there was an invisible line that divided Merlin and Arthur from the rest of them and that none could cross. 'You were always the greatest of us all. If there is anyone able to do it is it you.'

The almighty warlock lowered his head so that his brow would touch his King's glowing shoulder and whispered what was meant for him and only for him. Because for Arthur that phrase became true. 'Not without you, sire.'

'It won't be easy,' Arthur had said in his ear. 'But it won't be impossible. And I promise you Merlin, I promise you that I will find you again. No matter what I will find you. Always.'

He'd always thought that the revelation of his magic would shake every bone of his body and, to be accepted as he was now, would fill him with overwhelming joy.

However it came as no surprise to discover that, even if Gwen now knew and she whispered into his ear that she couldn't thank him enough as she held him in a crushing grip, did nothing to soothe the wound that had been dealt so cruelly on his soul.

Gwen asked in the place of Arthur. He now sat besides her as he explained to her everything in the way he had always imagined he would do with Arthur, watching her eyes grow wide and full of a pride that he'd longed to see in Arthur's eyes since the beginning, watching as she once again embraced him and whispered that, "none of us ever deserved you, Merlin."

In the end, they mourned together, side by side, and though Merlin hardly shed any tears ( he had almost none to spare) Guinevere knew that the hollowness in his eyes spoke of a grief deeper than what she could ever begin to understand.

.

Guinevere announced that she would repel the ban on magic on the second day after Merlin's arrival.

She held his gaze with hers as she told him, quietly, that she would do everything in her power so that the injustice and cruelty of Uther's purge could be forgotten, so that magic-users could leave in peace amongst the rest of the people. Merlin had embraced her and thanked her with heartfelt warmth but yet the hollowness in his eyes only increased.

Eventually, as silent and as soft as the winter's breeze, Merlin left.

Guinevere never knew if it had been day or night when he'd done it. She never knew if he'd meant to say any last goodbyes between their late talks beside the fire, she never got to tell her friend how much she loved him for being who he was. Gaius assured her that Merlin already knew.

Merlin had left behind everything, an uneaten meal, a sidhe staff and his beloved magic book, even his bright red neckerchief that now Gaius held as his greatest and most valuable possession. He told Gaius that, should Camelot ever need him he would be there but that, for now, he needed to be alone.

Yet Gaius never saw his ward again, not until his last breaths were near and a hooded man came from the shadows to hold his hand and whisper to him with the given name of 'father' and he saw those bright blue eyes shine below the hood. As Merlin had always predicted, once Morgana was gone and the resentment of the wounds Uther had inflicted upon the Old Religion lessened countless druids and men, amongst them one named Gilli and another one named Iseldir, took it upon them to protect the city of the Once and Future King.

Camelot became the City of Hope it was always destined to be and Guinevere ruled justly and fairly and she was later known by the name of Queen Guinevere the Magnificent *, a title that she later would give her late husband, declaring that he deserved it far more than her.

And, by the lake shore, Merlin waited.

*Narnia reference. :D

I really don't think Merlin would've stayed but rather protected Camelot from afar. As much as it breaks my heart it is my headcanon. :')

We all need hugs right now so hugs for you all. We can get through this guys, we can.