just fixing up a few typos and such.

This was one of those "it-just-sort-of-popped-into-my-head-and-wouldn't-go-away" deals that I've always heard others complain about but have never actually experienced. Until now.

I don't know if it's good, it could very well be rubbish. Just sort of punched it out this evening in an hour, because like I said, it wouldn't go away. Alas!

"I'll admit, Arthur, I was surprised." The old professor rustled through the papers scattered over his desk, snatching at corners and stuck-out edges until he found the specific one he was looking for. The student before him, Arthur Pendragon, was the son of an old friend; albeit a distant one. They hadn't kept in contact for years, so it was a surprise to see the young boy all grown up appear on his roll call at Camelot University, as an English major no less. Uther must have changed over these long years, at least enough to allow his only son a life of his own.

The blond stood awkwardly at the foot of the massive oak desk that filled the majority of the old man's office. He had appeared seemingly wary of being called out after class by the head professor of Modern Literature and Creative Writing, Doctor Giaus; but whom everyone just called Old Giaus. The kids thought he didn't know what else they called him when they thought he wasn't listening. He was old, not deaf. Mostly. Certainly not stupid.

Arthur kept standing there, quietly fidgeting with his bag, while Giaus searched. Finally, with a slight "aha," the professor pulled out the item in question - Arthur's most recent assignment, a work submitted for a project entitled "Memories".

"See, you've always produced excellent prose," Giaus said, setting the paper back down and leaning forward on his elbows. "But this was unlike anything you've given me. Where your other pieces lacked emotion, they made up for in skill and message. This," the old professor inclines his head towards the report, "is full of depth and character, and most of all sympathy. You truely feel for the two men and their past, and the most by far for their reunion."

All through the professor's praise, Arthur remained silent, still picking at the edge of the strap on his bag. Gaius glanced up, watching the blond's face carefully, choosing his words even moreso, "This is also a problem.
"Arthur, this is a creative writing class. You know this. You've given me interesting, beyond average work in the past, which you should be proud of. But specifically, this is a prose class. Works of observation, of experience, of happenings. Not," he picked up the battered and dogtagged piece off the table with wrinkled fingers, "fiction." he tossed it back down where it landed with a gentle muted thunk.

Arthur's head snapped up, fingers dropping, striking blue eyes narrowing. Gaius had always admired Ygraine's eyes when he had known her, and was surprised to see them copied so exactly on her son. Yet the young man remained silent, so Gaius continued, his voice calm and even,

"There are passages in which you speak from the past, present, and even from future tense; an issue which we've never had to discuss speak as though you're much older than you are, when so much time could not possibly have passed. Some of the situations you describe are incredibly unlikely, and others downright physically impossible. You don't go as far as to actually use the word magic, but it's implied so heavily it would take a blind man with mispelt brail to miss it.

And then there's this nonsense about reincarnation - I mean no offense if that's your religious choosing, Arthur, but in the context you use it, it's simply made out to be unrealistic. The main principle behind all theories of reincarnation is that one does not remember previous lives, and certainly wouldn't be remembered by others in their new ones."

Gaius kept his eye on Arthur's expression the whole time he spoke, but the student's blank face never wavered. It might soon, though, if Gaius pressed on where he meant to. Sighing, not really wanting to bring it up, but being too far now to stop,

"Then there's this about Merlin."

A tightness around the eyes, and clench of the jaw - the only indications Arthur showed of even hearing the old man speak. Instead of trying to explain the passage he was referring to, Gaius chose to take Arthur's words directly.

"It wasn't fair, that in this life he chose to leave.

In all the others, we were either separated by force; by life or distance, circumstance; or by destiny. When we did end up finding each other, we never died far from another. A day, an hour - together, if that was an option.

But now he was going to his death, and he knew it.

When the war came, as we knew it would, it was assumed I would join the ranks. It was expected of me, and I expected it of myself. I chose airforce for the interest, the honor, and the fact that i've always wanted to fly again, ever since the dragons from the first time. I went and trained, and I fought, and I lived; because it was expected of me. But I never left.

No one expected Merlin to join.

No one wanted Merlin to join.

It wasn't safe, he wasn't built for war - every life was the same gangly limbs, beanroot build and lanky arms, coarse black hair that fell in his eyes no matter how he cut it. Merlin wouldn't last a day. But he insisted, and signed up despite our protests.

It was his first mission. Just routine scouting; simple, done a thousand times before by novices even greener than him - I hadn't even bothered to be worried.

So of course he got shot down.

Actually, it all seems to come back to Merlin. Everything you've written here, or in past assignments, or in anything of yours I've ever read. Yet outside your written words, Arthur, I've never heard of the boy before in my life; not from your father, not from you."

Arthur's eyes were clenched tightly closed, but he opened them softly at Giaus's words. They bored into they old man's grey eyes with surprising intensity, and after a moment, sadness. He spoke quietly, "You really mean it. Last time, you said you didn't, but you were lying. But here, you actually never knew him. He would've..." Arthur looked away, ducking his head to the side. He muttered, "He would've liked you as a professor. You're a good one. Usually. English," Arthur snorted, an slightly amused sound, "He always thought you would come back in Chemistry. Even history would have made more sense. But I suppose all those books you read had to come into play sometime."

Gaius frowned, the corners of his lips pulling down, his eyebrows arching in a way only he knew how. This was more serious than he had thought.

Rather than try to contradict the inherintly stubborn Pendragon before him just yet, Giaus glanced back down and continued reading, jumping to a later portion.

"Life stopped when Merlin did.

I intended to end things for myself not long after, as we often did when one of us met an untimely end, but circumstances here made that difficult. There was still a war on, after all, and I couldn't bring myself to abandon this the way he abandoned me. Leave the way he left.

The war weared on, as did I. Time lost all meaning, as hours stretched lost into days, weeks into months, into years. I grew cold. I grew old. I grow older. Until it finally ended.

Sometimes there are lives when we never meet. Those are alright, as far as things go, because we never truly know what we're missing - we just feel the hole inside and attribute it to something simpler; whether we mark it down as hunger, depression, lack of fulfillment, of whatever sort; the name really doesn't matter. It's the lives with the memories that hurt most. When you know who you are, who he is, when you remember - but you can't find him. The lives when you're lost.

That's what I feared as I prepared to leave. I had long since stopped fearing death; those cold arms had become familiar as an old friend to me. To us. It was life I feared. Life without Merlin.

That was all I thought coming home. The flight back, despite the fact I swore never to set foot in an aircraft again; the taxi home, the walk up, the open door. I almost didn't see him.

But I always do, eventually.

I didn't think. I just fell, and was caught, as I always am. And a voice in the room that kept repeating in a murmur, "You were dead, you were dead, you were dead," and I realize it's mine. But he holds me close and holds me tight, whispering to me, "Not yet. Not in this life, Arthur, and not in the next. It's our last one, you've felt it, too, and I won't leave you then."
"You came home."
"I always will. This, then one left, Arthur. So not yet.

Not yet." Gaius repeated, finishing the paper.

He sighed, setting back down on the desk. The old man reached up and removed his round spectacles, rubbing the heels of his hands into his tired eyes. Wind flutters through the open windows, scattering what little order the professor had made in the small office. He glances back to the man before him, expecting an outburst, an excuse, something. Anything.

But Arthur just stood there. The expression on his face is one of calm composition, but even a Pendragon can't hide what's in his eyes. The old man keeps his own eyes locked on those of the younger.

And Gaius is deafened by all he's not saying.

"Fiction." Giaus said.

"Life." Arthur replied.

"But life is not always truth."

Arthur was silent.

"You don't deny that this is your imagination running wild, then?"

Still nothing. Giaus sighed.

"I'm sorry, Pendragon, but I can't accept this." The old man tossed the paper, watching as it slid across the desk and threatened to topple to the floor and scatter. But firm hands catch it as it falls, grasping it tight and tucking it gently into the bag around his shoulder.

"I understand."

Arthur moved for the door, leaving a tired, defeated professor to think about whether or not he had just ruined his top student's chances at pursuing the profession, when the blond turned back around. Only then did Gaius's old eyes catch the young man's hands shaking.

"You called it fiction. It is, in part. It's very nearly all true, even the things you don't believe 'physically possible', for all but three. One; Merlin was a medic, not a pilot. Nearly every life he's done, he's wanted to help people. And he never had the stomach for the old jets.
Two; that was his last life, the one before this. And he knew; knew that I had more to go when he didn't, knew that the death there would be his real one, knew there was no going back, but he went to war regardless. Because he didn't want me to be alone."

Arthur made it to the door, opened it, and turned, his hand resting on the knob. He paused, unmoving.

"And three. He never came home."

The door shut behind him with a click.