Where Reason Fades

Chapter 12

The sky was a dark navy over the desert. Rain lashed the windows of Merlin's office as he sat at his desk, eyes glued to the screen, dark circles smudged across his pallid skin below them, hair awry, piles of case files piled up around him. Gwen stood nervously at his desk, ringing her delicate hands, an expression of defeat splayed across her young face. The pair were in the middle of a conversation that they had had multiple times over the last moth.

"Merlin. I'm worried about you, we're all worried about you. Please, take a break, eat something." She begged softly.

"I'm okay, thanks, too much to do," Merlin brushed her off with a brief and inconvincing smile.

"You're not okay." Gwen countered. She walked to the desk and reached out to Merlin, who moved his hand away and sighed.

"Please. Gwen. I am okay. I need... I need to get this work done. These are orphans and they won't wait." He gestured futilely at the screen, looking at her with his eyes full of please. Since his disastrous meal with Arthur he had thrown himself back into his work more than ever, barely stopping to eat or sleep, except when his body insisted. Unable to allow himself to think of Arthur, he forced himself to keep busy so he could keep going.

Gwen sighed and looked down, defeated. It was the same every time, and Merlin felt a pang of guilt mixing in with all the other emotions he was trying to surpress.

"Okay. I'm not saying I like it, but okay. I'll be around if you need me, Lance and I have a romantic date sorting out warehouse inventory... Not that I'm complaining about our relationship... I'm sorry, you don't want to hear about this... I'm going to go." She babbled, worried about hurting Merlin's feeling by reminding him of her happy relationship. She stood awkwardly for a moment before turning around to leave.

She shut the door quickly behind her to keep out the driving rain, and Merlin watched her dash across the muddy ground to the warehouse through the water-blurred window. He sighed at stared at his screen again, barely taking in the information in front of him. Hangs reaching up to run through his inky mane, made unruly, he buried his head in them and for a brief moment let himself think about Arthur, not that that man had been allowed to stray far from his traitorous mind for the last month. Taking a deep breath, he raised his head and sunk back into his work. The lonely minutes passed at a drag, as Merlin processed more and more of the oprhans' files. Suddenly he was disturbed by a disperate hammering at the office door.

No one in their right minds would leave shelter today, and Merlin's mind flashed through every terrifying emergency that could force someone to brave the rain that came down like watery knives, even with the power to lacerate skin. He had only opened the door a crack when a sodden black and white mass bundled in in a rush of rain water, sputtering and swearing. Merlin slammed the door behind them and whirled around, his exclaimation dying on his lips as he saw a familiar broad frame and blonde hair, and his heart lept in his chest. Arthur turned, running a hand through his hair where it was plastered to his head turning the brilliant gold into a dark caramel, his white shirt was plastered to him like a second skin, made tanatalisingly transparent in the downpour, it left nothing to Merlin's imagination.

"Arthur!! What are you doing here? And why did you knock? it's thrashing it down you should have just come in, idiot" his voice came out in a rush. Arthur looked up and smirked, and Merlin's heart ached to see the crystal blue of his eyes again. Pictures could never do him justice, not that Merlin had been looking him up on the spacenet at all. Not even once.

"Knocking is polite, Merlin. I thought it never rained here!" Arthur raised his eyebrows as if somehow the annual event was Merlin's fault. Merlin rolled his eyes.

"You have picked the only day in the solar calendar that it rains to show up unnanounced. Most pilots won't come near us today, they call it dydd glaw. Speaking of which...?" He raised his eyebrows expectantly, and suddenly it dawned on Arthur that the last time they'd seen eachother, Merlin might as well have said he didn't want to see him anymore. A voice in the back of his head - which sounded uncomfortabley like Morgana - chastised him for being so arrogant as to think the fact that he had finally made a decision, that Merlin would still be waiting for him.