Chapter Text
Merlin is dead.
Gaius has known his nephew not even six months, knows he is not even twenty years of age. And now he is dead.
“He's stopped breathing,” Guinevere says uncomprehendingly. Gaius aches. “What's happening? Gaius?”
He checks for her benefit, even though he is already certain. He feels empty, suddenly, as though someone has scooped out his insides with a trowel and set them to rest on a burning pyre until they are nothing but ash. His fingers are numb. His throat is thick. He cannot quite breathe.
He thinks of Alice, thinks of Nimueh, thinks of Balinor. All the people he has hurt, everyone he has wronged, and now Merlin. It will never end. He is poison to everything he touches.
“His heart has stopped,” he whispers.
Guinevere gasps, perhaps says something. It is difficult to tell. Gaius is too busy thinking of the men he has seen burned and drowned and stoned to death. Merlin looks nothing like them. His cheeks, though sallow, retain some hint of pink. His body, though slack, is youthful and whole. To think that this could happen now, could happen so absurdly quickly, not by the crown or by some spell gone wrong but because of Merlin’s foolish selflessness. How could this be? Hadn’t the dragon promised him great things? Hadn’t Merlin truly been everything Gaius had once thought himself to be in his own youth, strong and kind and just?
“He can't be,” Gaius murmurs, forcing himself to his feet, away from the dead thing that was once his nephew. “He can't be. It was his destiny.”
“It's my fault,” Guinevere cries. “If I'd have got here sooner- if I'd have been quicker-”
Guinevere interrupts herself with a sob, and Gaius blinks away his tears. This is not the first death he has mourned, not even the first death of a family member. He cannot lose himself in grief when Guinevere needs his support.
“No, no,” he whispers, opening his arms. She falls into them like a withering flower, shaking and sobbing. “It was me,” he whispers into her hair. He cannot look at what once was Merlin. He tucks her head away, so she doesn’t have to see it either. He teeters precariously over the endless chasm of his own guilt. “I should've looked after him better. It's my fault.”
He presses a fatherly kiss to her head, every part of him crumbling. He should have prevented this. He should have known, should have worked harder, should have-
“That's disgusting,” a weak voice declares from the bed. Gaius yanks his head back to see- Merlin, propped up on an elbow and grinning with white teeth. “You should be ashamed of yourself. You're old enough to be her grandfather.”
“Merlin,” Gaius breathes. He lets go of Guinevere, staggers forward. If this is real- please let this be real- “You're alive.”
Merlin’s face does something strange at that, spasming and crumpling, and Gaius almost thinks Merlin’s about to cry before his mouth straightens and grins with white teeth. His eyes are so bright they almost look gold. “No. I'm the ghost come back to haunt you.”