The Realm of Make-Believe

Merlin Reverse Big Bang: The Valley of the Angels, Part 3, PG-13

definewisdom — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 22:41:22 GMT

Link to part 1

Link to part 2

“So,” Gwaine said, at the bottom of the cliff again. “We seem to be a bit stuck. But it’s a lovely scenic place… if a bit cold.” He clenched his hands into fists. “Had to do this in the middle of winter, didn’t we? Heaven knows Arthur couldn’t send us anywhere warm. He could at least have waited until summer to get us to fetch this uncle of his.”

He had pulled Leon in closer to the wall and draped his cloak over the two of them, regretting the fact that he had destroyed his own – for all the good it had done them.

The singing started again and he shivered.

“There’s got to be a way out of here somehow…” he said. “There is always a way out.”

*

It wasn’t as late in the morning as Gwaine had said, in fact it was still relatively early. But Leon knew what was wrong now. This was not a winter’s morning, like it had been when he had left Camelot only a few days ago. This was full summer. The sky a bright blue, the air warm. Something was wrong – beyond wrong. Time itself had changed. He had never heard of magic like this before, but it only made him more determined to find the source. He headed straight for the stables.

Merlin was there when he arrived, cleaning Arthur’s saddle.

If, of course, this was Merlin. Leon smiled at him warily and listened as he proceeded to tell him how insufferable Arthur was being today. He certainly seemed like Merlin.

“Where are you heading?” Merlin asked. Leon froze, his hands half way through buckling on the reins.

“Just for a ride,” he said. “To clear my head.”

“You were a little out of it last night,” Merlin said with a grin. “Though it does serve you right for betting you could drink Gwaine and Percival under the table. No one’s ever managed that.”

Leon frowned, but nodded.

“Are you alright?” Merlin asked after a second. “You seem a little distracted.”

“Fine,” Leon said, snapping slightly. Merlin shut up abruptly, looking a little insulted.

“Good,” he said. “Just checking.”

“Sorry,” Leon forced himself to say. He didn’t need anyone in this strange world thinking that he was doing anything unusual. “One of those mornings.”

“Right,” Merlin grinned again. “I know all about those.”

Leon really, really didn’t think he did, but he held his tongue and continued to prepare his horse, before leading it out.

“See you later then,” Merlin called after him. Leon waved distractedly behind him.

*

Morgana used the cooking pot to scry in. It wasn’t an ideal piece of equipment of course, but you couldn’t afford to be selective when you were running for your life. It took a little longer than usual, her own exhaustion showing, but she finally, finally found what she was looking for.

Leon. Of course. He didn’t look like he was in good way – poor man. She smirked at the image. And with him? One of the new ones, the man who had fought in the melee and saved Arthur from those idiots. What had his name been? Gwaine.

So, an old friend and a new one, trapped like rabbits. It would be so easy to finish them off where they huddled. Worth it too, to put an end to the man who had stood in front of her and stared at her without even bowing his head. No respect.

Morgana’s lip curled as she looked at the pair of them, imagining how simple it would be just to end them right there.

But no.

This was not the time for thoughtless reactions. She would get nowhere by killing them now – only attract Arthur’s attention at a time when she was not yet recovered enough to fight back. This would be a long game, a play of vengeance that she would work from as many angles as she could. She would not play such a simple hand. She would surround Arthur with conspiracies and enemies, and she would make sure that even if one plan failed, the next would not. She would not be so easily thrown aside again.

So she would rescue those brave knights, and she would let them get through with their message, and then she would have Agravaine inside the court and Arthur would never suspect.

But they could wait, she was sure, it wasn’t like they were going anywhere. She needed to work on Agravaine some more.

*

The road seemed longer somehow, this time. The sun overhead barely moved. He had thought that time had dragged last time, with Gwaine’s unstoppable noise, but on his own, his head turning over a million and one things, Leon couldn’t seem to move fast enough. Pushing his horse, he should be able to make it in two days, resting as little as possible.

The sun hadn’t even reached its highest point yet, but he felt as though he had been riding for hours, the miles trudging by.

He must have been missed by now, if this Camelot was anything like the Camelot he knew. He would have been expected to report for duty earlier, or to a delayed training session. Merlin would have told Arthur that he had seen Leon riding out. They would send someone out after him, but they would be more than a day behind, and Leon knew enough about covering his tracks.

*

Agravaine’s private chambers were just what they purported to be – private. He retired to them when he needed the quiet and stillness, or when his frustration rose to a level he could not control. The servants knew to avoid them at all but the essential times.

Which was why he was startled to find someone sitting at his desk, looking entirely at home.

He was even more surprised when he realised that it was Morgana.

“My lady,” he exclaimed, quickly shutting the door behind him. “What are you doing here?”

“I needed to speak with you,” she said.

“But surely, as you said before, it isn’t safe for you to be here.”

“No, but nowhere’s safe for me anymore.” She looked tired. “I need to know if I can trust you, Agravaine.”

“Of course, my lady,” he said.

“You are so quick to reassure me.”

“Morgana,” he said, crossing to the desk. “Uther and I have never been friends, and you know I have disagreed with many of his policies.”

“Those on magic?” Morgana asked.

“In part, yes,” Agravaine said. “The king is stricter on such matters than I would believe justified.”

“Then your thoughts and mine are similar on the subject,” Morgana said. She sighed and looked at her hands where they sat crossed on the desk. “He has taken all my power from me,” she said. “I have nothing left, and I am afraid that our views will now not be represented in Camelot.”

“Arthur, perhaps…” Agravaine suggested.

“As I said before, Arthur follows his father’s ideas. He sides with him on this. I have no friends in Camelot.”

“I don’t see how I can help you,” Agravaine said, looking puzzled. “I live here, I have no power in Camelot myself.” Morgana leant forwards, her face carefully earnest.

“Arthur trusts you, he will respect your advice, where mine would be unwelcome,” she smiled. “If you were to go to Camelot, then you could… persuade him sometimes. And perhaps help me to recover my position.”

“I would do anything to help you.”

“Thank you,” Morgana told him, looking up again.

“But I have no invitation to Camelot, and if Arthur and Uther are as you have said, turning against even those they trust, then I don’t believe I will be able to help anyone.”

“Arthur will send for you,” Morgana said, with great certainty.

“How can you know that?” Agravaine asked.

“I just do…”

“My lady,” Agravaine said, lowering his voice as placatingly as he could. “You are still unwell.”

“I am recovered enough. When Arthur sends for you, will you help me?”

Agravaine drew in a breath and straightened up. Morgana could see his vanity in the motion. He had always had that pride and vanity in him, she had disliked it when she was younger, and not seen it as the advantage it could be. It would make him easy to use and manipulate. She would convince him of his own vested interests in her success and he would follow her, blinded by his own weakness for her and his greed.

“I will.”

Morgana smiled, not letting her triumph show, she modified it, gentled it into something almost gracious. It would be a long journey, but she was a step closer, one step closer to getting everything she wanted.

*

Leon made camp for the night. He had not had a chance to pack more than the most rudimentary supplies so dinner was sparse and unsatisfying. The night air was at least warmer than the last time he had taken this route, and he did not shiver as he rested back against the tree, keeping his sword within easy reach.

He would sleep a few hours and then rise with the dawn to reach the valley the next day.

He managed to sleep far more easily than he would have liked, his eyes closing like lead weights were attached to them. An entire day of riding had worn him out, and the confusion had not helped. He was asleep before he could even contemplate the discomfort of the tree root sticking into his back.

He did not wake with the dawn, however, it was long before that when his eyes snapped open, aware that something was wrong.

Years as a knight, campaigns, camps and hunts had taught him to sleep with an ear open when camping. Danger came in many forms. Wolves could creep up in the night, brigands and bandits and other enemies would think nothing of slitting a man’s throat in his sleep to steal his bread and money. So Leon was alert in a matter of seconds, immediately knowing that he had been woken for a reason. He lay, forcing himself to breath carefully, feigning sleep still, and listening carefully.

There was someone there, sitting on the fallen log nearby. That was odd. A thief would have killed the sleeper first before helping himself to his belongings, a wolf could not sit.

He rolled over, still feigning sleep, his hand reaching for his sword.

“I’m not a thief,” an unexpectedly familiar voice said. “So you don’t need that.”

Leon didn’t let go of the hilt, though, just rolled back over and sat up, looking directly towards where the voice had come from.

Gwaine held his hands up as the point of Leon’s sword was directed towards his chest.

“Or you could point it at me anyway. Good to see you too.”

“You followed me,” Leon said.

“You were expecting me to just let you run off on your own without back up?” Gwaine asked, laughing. “Solidarity, brotherhood, remember? The tenets of chivalry and the knights’ code that we must uphold.” His voice was mocking, but his expression was serious, Leon blinked at the juxtaposition. The Gwaine he knew would have mocked the idea through and through – wouldn’t he? “You weren’t yourself this morning, and when Merlin said he’d seen you riding off – and not in your usual direction – I thought I’d come and see what was so urgent it kept you from your knightly duty of mocking Arthur’s hangover.”

“You shouldn’t have followed me.”

“The thanks a man gets for helping,” Gwaine said, shrugging and dropping his hands down again. “You’re lucky I did. You didn’t give anyone a reason for being absent. Luckily I’ve had practise at giving excuses. No one’s expecting either of us back in Camelot for days.”

“They’re not?” Leon looked at him. He had never been this confused – not even when Uther had married that troll. He couldn’t find anything in Gwaine’s words that seemed like a trap, but if there was magic involved, there had to be a trap somewhere, surely?

“No,” Gwaine said. “Now how about you put the sword down and tell me why you’re retracing a journey we took a year and a half ago. This isn’t something to do with why you were talking about Agravaine this morning, is it?”

“A year and a half…” Leon said, lowering the sword.

“Yeah,” Gwaine said. “When Arthur sent us to go get the…” Gwaine cut himself off. “Well, my mother always taught me not to speak ill of the dead.”

“We started the trip two days ago,” he said. It was Gwaine’s turn to look confused.

“Two days ago?” he asked. “Two days ago we were in Camelot.”

“No, two days ago we were sent out to fetch Lord Agravaine to aid Arthur while the king was… unavailable.” Gwaine stared at him.

“The king?” he said. “You mean Uther.”

“Yes, of course, King Uther. Who else?” Leon asked.

“Arthur… Arthur’s king, he has been for…” Gwaine cut off as he saw Leon gaping at him.

“Arthur’s king?”

“Yes, if you’d stayed in Camelot long enough to actually see the man nursing his poor wounded head, you would have known. Look, I don’t remember you knocking your head last night but you might have done. We should get you back to Camelot, have Gaius take a look at you.”

“I…” Leon paused. “I fell into the pool. The wind…”

“What wind?” Gwaine asked.

“The wind in the valley. You went out to taunt it, I knocked you out of the way and it grabbed me instead. I remember falling.”

“The valley?” Gwaine’s confusion fell from his face, replaced with a look of complete seriousness. “You mean the valley with the angels – that valley.”

“Yes.”

“That’s the last thing you remember?” Gwaine asked. He looked thoughtful for a long moment.

“Yes,” Leon repeated.

“That was a year and a half ago.”

“So you’ve said. There must have been some kind of magic.”

“Of course there was some kind of magic,” Gwaine said. “I mean, the way we got out of there, and the wind… There was definitely magic. You think that it sent you here?”

“I can’t come up with a better explanation,” Leon said with a shrug.

“You’ve either forgotten the last year and a half…” Gwaine started, trailing off again. Leon waited for him to finish the sentence, but there was nothing forthcoming. He finally noticed that Leon seemed to be waiting for a conclusion and coughed. “Or you’ve been sent into the future by a magic wind monster angel. Might explain why you were unconscious like you were”

“Unconscious?” Leon asked.

“You were out for over a day.”

“So you believe me?” Leon asked.

“Something strange happened in that valley. You seem convinced. We might as well go out there and see what we can find.” Gwaine shrugged. “Though I can’t say I’m looking forward to seeing the place again.”

“Right,” Leon agreed. He wasn’t sure whether Gwaine’s presence was a good thing or a bad thing, but it might at least make the hours slip by faster.

“We should get some rest,” Gwaine said, heading over to where he had reined his own horse to a nearby tree and pulling off a sleeping roll.

Leon watched him thoughtfully for a few moments. Of all the people in Camelot to come after him, Gwaine was not the one he would have thought of first. Lancelot, perhaps, Percival, maybe, Merlin definitely – he turned up everywhere – Arthur possibly, but Gwaine?

“Why did you follow me?” Leon asked, unable to keep the question in any longer. Gwaine turned, looking honestly surprised by the question.

“You didn’t seem yourself this morning,” he said. “And when have you ever known me to turn my back on an adventure?” he grinned, but Leon had the distinct feeling that there was something else behind the smile and it was that rather than the words themselves that convinced him to speak again.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Gwaine said. “I’ve learnt more songs in the last year and a half – and if you really don’t remember any of them, then I’ve got to teach them to you again.”

*

Morgause did not wake again. She was getting paler by the day and her breathing remained shallow and strained. Morgana was beginning to think that the recovery she was trying for would be impossible. She had tried every method of healing she could think of, from magical to herbal, and she found herself, at times, almost wishing that Gaius were there. Not that he would help even if he could, these days, but there had been days when he had seemed to know everything.

Morgana herself did not sleep. She kept vigil, staring at the wooden wall and turning everything over in her mind. Betrayal, Camelot, loss, family. It all wound itself together in her mind, until it was the same thing, and still she stared at the wall.

The recent months had taught her one thing. There was nothing left in Camelot that held value for her any more. She had gone down that root. She had tried mercy. She had offered Gwen – even Gwen – a place at her side, and all her overtures of peace, mercy and kindness had been cast aside as though they meant nothing. No one there cared anything for her anymore, so why should she show them any mercy.

The next time, she would not be so weak. She would show them that she meant every word she said, and she would not spare a single life. She would see Arthur dead, Gwen too, and all of those ridiculous knights. She would see Camelot as a wasteland, and then she would rebuild it, better, cleaner, with none of the taint of Uther’s ways.

She reached out to take her sister’s hand; it was too cold and she shivered at the touch. It felt as though she was holding the hand of a corpse already. She looked back to Morgause, dragging her eyes away from the wall, and was grateful to see that her sister’s chest still rose and fell with her breathing.

“No mercy,” she said into the still air, and Morgause seemed to smile.

*

Gwaine hadn’t been lying about the drinking songs, he had learnt several new ones in the year and a half that Leon supposedly had missing from his memory. They were, without exception, disgusting, undignified and ridiculous, and Leon had to suppress a smile or three.

“There’s your sense of humour,” Gwaine said, looking back as Leon failed to conceal a grin. “Good to see it back again. That’s not something I’ve missed you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“Always so serious,” Gwaine said. “Duty, king and Camelot – not necessarily in that order. I’ve spent a year and a half working on getting you to relax a little bit and then you return to your old ways.”

“Not old ways for me,” Leon pointed out.

“Whatever…” Gwaine said with a shrug. “The point is the same.”

*

Morgana set out early, letting magic guide her towards the valley. She did not feel comfortable leaving Morgause alone for as long as this was likely to take, but she knew that her sister would not appreciate it if an opportunity like this was left to fade because of her. Morgause would be as eager as she was – more eager, perhaps – to see this done, to crack open Camelot once more.

And she was doing this for her sister after all, getting justice on the people who had murdered both of them – or tried to at least.

The magic guiding light darted off between the trees and she set off after it. She would save the two knights and they would never know that it would have been better for them if they had died in that valley.

*

Gwaine woke up with a crick in his neck, trying to remember what had happened the previous day. His fingers, back and arms hurt. In fact, he considered, stretching out, all of him hurt. He hadn’t felt this worn out and bruised in a long time, nor woken up this cold.

Memory filtered through gradually, reminding him of the valley, the angels, the wind and Leon.

He froze, mid stretch, and looked down to his side. Leon still lay there, exactly as he had the night before, not having moved an inch. There was a moment where Gwaine wasn’t sure whether the other man was still alive, but then he saw his chest rise and Gwaine let out a huff of breath he hadn’t been aware was stuck in his throat.

“Morning,” he said. Still no response. “You know, you’re far more interesting when you’re talking to me, even if it is to remind me that I’m supposed to be upholding Camelot’s honour.” He sighed.

Time to find a way out. There was no way back the way they had come, no way ahead, and no way up. There had to be another way, though. Maybe a tunnel...

*

The future was different. It was not just Arthur being king, it was everything. Gwaine told him, after Leon had assured him that he did want to know, about Lancelot and Agravaine and Morgana (always Morgana) and the sword in the stone and everything.

Leon listened, feeling a little sick, and he wished that he hadn’t asked, but he felt better knowing, because now maybe he could change things. Maybe he could stop Morgana from opening that portal, so Lancelot wouldn’t have to walk through it. Maybe he could keep Uther from dying, and he could definitely stop Agravaine. He could make sure that leech never had any power in Camelot.

He could change everything, and he started to plan, letting Gwaine’s voice fade into background noise as he thought things through, occasionally asking about a detail to make sure that he took everything into account.

They time passed more quickly now, and it seemed like no time at all before the village he stayed at the night before last was in sight. They did not approach it this time, but made straight for the forest. Gwaine had managed, at some point, to take the lead, though Leon wasn’t sure when, or why.

“What did happen?” Leon asked, finally. “In the valley.” Gwaine paused ahead of him.

“Honestly?” he said. “I have no idea. We were trapped, you were unconscious, and I couldn’t find any possible way out. I thought we were going to die there. Then there was some sort of… blast. Bright light everywhere, and that singing started, and the next thing I know I’m waking up on the floor of the valley, you’re awake again, and suddenly we can walk out.”

“A bright light?” Leon asked.

“Precisely,” Gwaine said, shrugging.

“And how did I wake up?”

“I don’t know.”

Leon hoped that they would work it out, because if he didn’t go back now, everything was going to turn out exactly the same.

*

Morgana found the valley sometime after midday, she couldn’t be sure of the time through the canopy of the trees. The first sign she saw of the place was the evenly arranged stones, like the stone circle that her sister had taken her to sometimes, only just a long, double line of them.

She could feel the magic, warding and guarding spells, holding something in, but frayed at the edges and cracked.

There was wild magic there, wild magic that she had never experienced before, it felt like crackling under her skin, like pure magic, pure power. It revived her as she walked towards it and she could imagine using this power to rip Camelot apart, stone by stone.

But Arthur was protected; she had to do this carefully and intelligently. It was difficult to remember that with the power pulling her, reminding her that she was connected to something so irresistible and overwhelming. She had to pause for a few moments to draw in her breath.

Then she went on again.

The stones were old, worn away at the edges, but she could tell that the holes had been made in them deliberately, though she could not have said how. Magic, most likely, but not enough to keep them from weathering. Around the base of each stone there were runes inscribed – a language her sister had taught her, but the words were almost worn out of all recognition.

Morgana walked up and down both sides of the valley, examining every stone.

*

There was someone above them, Gwaine was sure. He could hear footsteps and, a little while ago, the person had kicked some small stones down over the edge of the cliff.

He called out.

*

“Hello?”

Morgana started, stepping back, away from the edge. She had not been careful enough. Gwaine must have seen her. It was not Leon’s voice that she head. Perhaps he was still unconscious. She frowned as she realised that she might have to do something about that. The stones were not the only problem, it seemed.

“Is someone there?” Gwaine called again. She did not answer.

*

Perhaps he was just jumping at shadows, but he could have sworn there was someone on the cliff top.

If he could just get word out, then they might have a chance.

*

At the head of the valley, where it first opened out, there was one stone, slightly larger than the others and less worn. The words of the spell, carved around the base, were visible still and easy to read. This was the focus of the spell, Morgana knew. This stone was the important one, the one that pulled all the others into line. She reached out tentatively to touch it, and started at the spark of magic it gave off. It was sour and when she looked carefully, there was a split, right down the centre of it, a hairline fracture that went all the way through and would, inevitably break apart.

Whatever these stones imprisoned was close to escaping.

*

Magic. They could feel it, new magic. Dark and swirling, like the magic of the ones who had trapped them here. It was out of their reach, though, above their valley, but they knew its intent. It would remake the spell, bind them again.

They howled.

*

The sudden noise made Gwaine clap his hands over his ears, shouting in surprise.

*

On the cliff top Morgana felt the noise vibrate through her. It felt like need and hate and despair and it called to her. She wanted to join it.

Somewhere inside her, though, she remembered her purpose. She could not afford to lose herself here. She had to stay focussed. She dragged her hands up, though it felt like she was fighting herself every step of the way. She put both hands on the stone, one on each side of the fracture and forced herself to ignore the screaming inside her and recite the words.

*

Leon walked into the valley again, Gwaine still in front of him, bracing himself for the wind, but none rose. The valley was almost unnaturally still.

“So,” Gwaine said, sounding a little unnerved. “This is it.”

“Yes…” Leon agreed.

“What now?”

“I don’t know.”

*

The power was immense. The sort of power that was lost to the world these days. It rushed through Morgana and she could feel the stone and the spell knitting together again. She could feel the screaming increasing, raging against her. Then, as soon as it had started, it was smothered.

*

Sudden silence, Gwaine looked around, but could see no one but Leon, still lying there. Nothing moved. The wind was gone. He straightened completely and turned again, his shoulders slowly slumping back down as the tension leeched from him.

The flash of light took him by surprise, burning so brilliantly that it seemed to block out everything else he could see.

*

Morgana’s eyes were closed, but even through her eyelids the brilliance of the magic clicking back into place still seared her retinas.

And then the magic was gone, snapping shut in a complete circle, leaving her reeling, clutching the stone in front of her just to stay upright.

*

Down in the valley, Gwaine collapsed, falling face forwards.

*

She did not have long, but the magical residue still lingered in her, enough for some small spells. Enough to get her from here to there.

The two knights were lying side by side, Gwaine groggily murmuring, Leon as silent as the grave.

The spell commanding Gwaine to sleep took hardly any energy at all, and she turned her attention to Leon, who barely moved, the only sign of life his shallow breathing.

It would be so easy to kill him here, steal his life from him. His sword and Gwaine’s both lay nearby, along with rocks, if she wanted to make it look like a tragic accident. She reached towards one, unable to quite resist, but she caught herself in time and pulled her hands back into her body, quashing the rising wave of hatred inside her.

They had to get through; their message should reach Agravaine without any problems arising. Arthur would not know she had ever been here, Agravaine would go to Camelot and then…

Well, then she would see what happened.

She crouched down over Leon and thought of the irony that here he was, at her mercy. The man who had refused to bow down to her was going to be in her debt for the rest of his life, no matter how short a time that might be. It was a pity that he couldn’t know the fact. Maybe she would tell him one day.

She planted her fingers on his temple gently, almost caressing.

“Hello again,” she said, smiling. “Time to come back.”

*

It felt like someone had grabbed him by the heart, and was tugging. Leon gasped, hand reaching for his chest.

“What’s wrong?” Gwaine was at his side in an instant, holding him up as Leon’s knees threatened to buckle.

“I don’t know…” he said back. “I think I’m being pulled back.”

“Doesn’t look like much fun,” Gwaine commented. Leon laughed a little, but then the jerk came again, yanking at him, hard, and his laugh turned into another gasp. “Perhaps you should sit down.”

“I’m…” fine was on the tip of Leon’s tongue, but it was snatched away. The pressure had risen to his head, like he was being pushed out of it. His vision was darkening. He was dimly aware of being lowered to the rocky ground.

*

He was easier to find than she would have thought. Morgana was pleasantly surprised. She had imagined his soul would be miles away by now. She pulled at it through the vague connection she could feel, muttering the words of the spell that she could barely remember.

He was resisting her.

“Idiot,” she said. “You need to be here. You belong here. Come back.”

*

It was like something hit him in the stomach.

“Leon?” Gwaine’s voice was miles away. “Leon.”

There was a feeling of hands on his face warm and large, rough palms against his jaw. But Leon was losing touch with the world around him. He felt cold.

The hands on his face changed, hot became cool, calluses vanished and fingers shrank.

Fingers, pressing against the sides of his face, cool and dry. He opened his eyes.

“Gwaine?” he said.

“Not quite.”

Leon sat up and pulled himself backwards, reaching for his sword.

“Morgana.”

“How nice of you to remember,” Morgana said. Her eyes were the same as he remembered, cold and hard when she had ordered the soldiers to shoot the civilians. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to kill you, not today. That would ruin my plans.”

“Agravaine,” Leon said. He saw the look of shock cross her face.

“Yes… How do you know that?” Morgana stepped forwards and he raised his sword to her. “Do you honestly think that can stop me?” Her eyes flashed gold and the sword flew across the valley to clatter against the rock. “You’re not being very grateful, you know. I did just save your life.”

“I know everything,” Leon said, frantically searching for something to distract her with. His sword was no use against her magic, he knew. “You’re not going to succeed this time. I will stop you.”

Morgana looked at him like he was a particularly stubborn beetle that refused to be squashed.

“I was already going to wipe your memory of me, I suppose I’ll just have to wipe it of the rest as well.” Her voice lowered and hardened. “Nothing’s going to stop me this time, Leon. Nothing. Your precious Prince Arthur isn’t going to stop me.”

“Morgana.”

She raised a hand and spoke a word and Leon found himself unable to move, frozen in place. Then, slowly, she came forward, her voice sweetening again into that false, honey tone.

“Now relax, this will only take a moment.”

*

Memory spells were difficult and without the wild magic from before having boosted her abilities, Morgana wouldn’t have been able to wipe more than a few minutes. But somehow Leon had discovered what she was doing. Who knew where that magic had sent his spirit, and who knew what he had learnt there. She would have to take all of the past couple of days. The man had hit his head, a little memory loss could be expected, after all.

She spoke the words of the spell, enunciating each syllable as carefully as she could, a wrong word or sound could destroy the man’s mind, and that was not an option – not today.

Morgana felt his memories draining away from his mind, trickling until she had to stop the deluge, for fear of losing all of it. He must remember his mission, he must not lose so much as to appear suspicious.

She severed the connection and ended the spell, whispering again the spell to induce sleep and Leon slumped backwards again, his head hitting the ground.

To her right, Gwaine was beginning to stir. She frowned. He should have been out for hours. She glanced at him for a long moment, considering him. Too strong for his own good, too much will power. She might have fun with him – later. But not now. Now she had to go. Morgause needed her and these two needed to get to Agravaine.

*

Gwaine hated hitting his head, really he did. If there was one injury that he could have done with never having again, it would be a head injury. Arthur would no doubt have made some sort of crack about him losing enough of his intelligence through drink to have any to waste in head injuries. But mainly it was just the groggy feeling that he had when he came round. Give him a dozen hangovers any day rather than one concussion.

He sat up, grimacing, and glanced over at Leon and started. He had been watching the other knight for the past day, on and off, and in that time, since Gwaine had covered him with the cloak, he hadn’t moved a muscle. But now he had. He had definitely moved. Gwaine could be observant when he needed to be, and he would need to be completely blind to miss the fact that Leon’s body was two feet away from where he had left it. Even more noticeably, Leon’s sword was in his hand and his arm was extended away from his body, lying awkwardly stuck out, his cloak thrown off.

“Leon?”

No response.

“Leon?”

A groan.

“Leon?” Gwaine struggled to his feet and walked over to the other knight only to be met by the point of Leon’s sword, pointed at his chest. He sighed and stopped. “It’s just me.”

*

Leon had the strangest sense of déjà vu as he looked at Gwaine standing at the other end of his blade. He pushed it aside, looking around the strange valley they seemed to have found themselves in.

“Where are we?”

“You don’t remember?”

“Arthur sent us to Agravaine,” Leon said.

“Yeah, and we agreed to help the kid in the village out finding his girl,” Gwaine said. Leon just stared at him. He had no memory of that. “Creepy singing angel stones, remember? Magic wind?”

“Magic?” Leon struggled to his feet. His arms and legs felt leaden, like they hadn’t been used in days.

“You must have really hit your head,” Gwaine said. “But you’re awake, which is better than before.”

“How long was I…?” Leon asked, looking around. There was a stream and a small pool, and beside it was a pile of bones that had once been human, bleached white.

“About a day or so,” Gwaine said. “You should probably go easy: you must have hit your head. I imagine that Agravaine will have a physician. You should definitely get someone to look at you.”

“I’m fine,” Leon said, shaking the cobwebs out of his head and dropping the tip of his sword down as he realised that he was still pointing it at Gwaine. “Sorry. It’s just…” His head felt thick, like it was fully of fog, and he knew there was something that he had to remember.

“Right, it’s okay,” Gwaine said. “Look, I’m going to try the exit again, you stay here and get your bearings.”

Leon watched him go and tried to string his thoughts together. There was uneasiness in his stomach, like there was something he needed to do, and he didn’t understand what Gwaine meant by ‘check the exit’. If he had been knocked unconscious a day ago, why were they here? Why hadn’t they already found a physician?

“Apparently whatever that light show was earlier must have unlocked the door,” Gwaine said. “I don’t know what happened, but we’re free.”

“Then we need to get to Lord Agravaine,” Leon said, “We’re already a day behind schedule.”

“Not yet,” Gwaine said. He crossed over to the pool and knelt down to pick up the bones, wrapping them up in what looked like…

“What did you do to your cloak?” Leon asked in horror. Gwaine winced and then put on his best smile, the one he always used when he was cheating.

“Necessary casualty,” he said.

Leon decided not to ask, at least not yet, though he had no idea what Lord Agravaine would think. His memories of the man painted him as a very proper nobleman. The shreds of Gwaine’s cloak would probably cause him some sort of small seizure.

*

“The knights will be arriving shortly,” Morgana said, stepping out of the shadows of Agravaine’s room. He jumped, his heart skipping a beat, before recovering and offering her a smile.

“You look better,” he commented. She smiled, slowly. It was a dangerous sort of smile, which made him blink, but when he looked at her again, it was gone, replaced by her usual look.

“I feel better,” she agreed. Her smile faded to seriousness. “You can’t let them know I’ve been here.”

“They won’t find out anything from me,” he assured her.

“Good,” she said, stepping back into the shadows. “I look forward to working with you.”

*

They returned the bones to the village nearby and found their horses in the stable where they had left them. Gwaine managed, with more tact than Leon would have believed him capable of, to inform the villagers that there was some sort of monster in the valley of the angels and it shouldn’t be bothering them from now on, but it might be best to stay away anyway.

It was strange, but as he presented the bones to the girl’s mother, wrapped up in Camelot red, the tattered cloak didn’t seem so tattered anymore, instead it seemed a fitting shroud.

A young man thanked them for what they had done with tears in his eyes, and Leon knew that he should recognise him, but he had no memory of the man at all. Feeling awkward, Leon just smiled and accepted the thanks before leaving the village with the distinct feeling that he had missed a lot.

“So what really happened in there?” he asked. Gwaine shook his head.

“I have no idea,” he said, before deflecting the conversation back to one of his terrible stories. Leon opened his mouth to tell him to be quiet, for once, but the words didn’t come. Instead, he found himself listening, and even laughing.

By the time they reached Agravaine’s hall and the small village that surrounded it, the feeling of uneasiness had lifted and Leon felt lighter than he had in months.

*

Lord Agravaine wore all black. Rumour had it that he had worn mourning colours since his sister’s death more than twenty years ago. He certainly seemed to like the colour. Gwaine thought he looked like a large black crow – a crow that was very pleased with itself. In fact, he reminded Gwaine of every single reason he had always hated the nobility. He had that expression in his face that said clearly ‘I deserve this and you do not’. Certainly, Agravaine was polite enough, following the correct formulas for dealing with knights of the realm, but beyond that, his charm seemed to be thinly covering contempt.

And they were supposed to be bringing him back to Camelot with them? The next year stretched endlessly ahead of him.

“My lord,” Leon said, bowing, Gwaine following him a half-second behind. “We come from his highness, Prince Arthur, with news and a request. If we could speak with you in private?”

“Of course,” Agravaine said, before waving his servants and personal guards out of the room.

When they were alone, Leon outlined the situation in Camelot, and Agravaine’s face tightened into one of concern.

“I had no idea things had become so bad. The lady Morgana? It can’t be.”

Leon assured him that it could be and it definitely was.

“The king is naturally upset by the incident,” Leon said, clearly aware of the implications of what he had to say next. Gwaine was glad Leon had insisted on doing the talking, handling Uther’s catatonic state with tact and diplomacy was not something he felt his own talents were up to. Leon continued. “He has… withdrawn from public life and Prince Arthur is currently running affairs for his father. In the circumstances, the prince feels that it would be best if he were to have a more experienced member of his family to offer advice.”

“Surely Uther…”

“The king is not in a position to offer advice,” Leon said slowly, and Gwaine could see from the tightness in his jaw exactly how much it cost the man to say even that.

“I see,” Agravaine said, leaning forward and resting his chin on his hands. “I am honoured that Arthur would think of me. Of course I will come. Anything I can do for Arthur, the crown and Camelot. I am his to command.”

“Then you will return with us to Camelot?” Leon asked.

“Yes.”

*

Morgana watched the proceedings in her scrying dish, and smiled to herself. Arthur’s own insecurities turned against him. This was all going to work out perfectly.

-

Merlin Reverse Big Bang: The Valley of the Angels, Part 2, PG-13

definewisdom — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 22:38:35 GMT

Link to part 1

“My lady?” Agravaine called into the small hut. There was movement within, he could hear, and a shadow fell under the door. Eventually it swung open and he found himself face to face with Morgana, who looked a little better than last time he had seen her.

“My lord,” she said. “Come in, please.”

“My thanks, my lady. I trust everything is sufficient. I know it isn’t much but…” he noticed the figure in the bed on the far side of the room.

“My sister,” Morgana said. “She was seriously injured as we were leaving Camelot. I fear for her life.”

“I am sorry, my lady,” he said.

“It is not you who needs to be sorry, Agravaine. It is Uther who is to blame, for all of this. Uther and Arthur - who follows his father blindly.” Her voice was cold and angry and Agravaine could see that her hands were rolled into fists.

“Will you tell me what happened?” Agravaine asked.

“I discovered the truth, and when I tried to voice my findings and take what was rightfully mine, I was exiled and forced from my home,” Morgana said. She looked out of the window.

“What truth?” Agravaine asked.

“The truth Uther has been hiding since my birth, that I am, in fact, his child.”

“Uther?” Agravaine said, his mouth falling open in astonishment. “Uther is your father?”

“Yes. But he will not acknowledge me.”

“If Uther is your father then…” Agravaine remembers Uther watching Gorlois’ wife, but then everyone had watched her, and Uther had had Ygraine, Agravaine’s own sister. He had betrayed Ygraine’s trust and…

“Then I have a right to the throne, or at least to part of Camelot. But he refuses to give it to me. He refused to admit my parentage and I had to force his hand. And still he denied me.”

There were tears in her eyes and Agravaine stepped up to put his hand on her shoulder.

“You should not work yourself up in the state you are in. You aren’t yet recovered.”

“I hate him,” Morgana said. “I hate him. He has the son he wants so he will not look at his daughter. Camelot is mine by right.”

“Sit down,” Agravaine urged. “You are still unwell.”

“I am well,” Morgana told him. “I am well. Or I will be well. Well enough to take what is mine.”

“I have no love of Uther,” Agravaine said. “I never have, but what you are suggesting is…”

“You were always my favourite of the family,” Morgana said, cutting in. “You used to talk to me like a person.”

“You’ve always been an interesting and inspiring young woman,” Agravaine said.

“Thank you. I know I must sound mad to you.”

“You sound like a woman who has been treated abominably. You may stay here as long as you like. If I can help you in any way, then I will.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

“Agravaine, please.”

“Thank you… Agravaine.”

“You are welcome, my lady.”

*

“This is the place,” Gwaine said, nodding to the small house with its windows shuttered.

“You’re sure?” Leon asked.

“Yep… There’s one place to go for gossip in a place like this.”

“And where’s that?” Leon asked.

“The dice tables. Young Taran and his Rhiannon were a favourite topic of conversation last night,” Gwaine said with a grin. “The favourite theory is that he’s been bewitching her into loving him and somehow she got free of the bewitchment and either he killed her to stop her from outing him as a sorcerer, or she killed herself in shame because she was carrying his baby.”

“Baby?”

“Drunken men are worse than palace servants for telling stories, and everyone likes a good embellishment. Of course, the girl’s brother’s been punching anyone in the face who suggests that she was carrying witch-spawn, but that’s only the people who are stupid enough to say it in front of him.” Gwaine shrugged. “Everyone else is pretending that they don’t know what’s going on and then talking about it under their breath.”

“What do you think the truth is?” Leon asked.

“Well I don’t think that he offered her as a sacrifice to the druidic gods,” Gwaine said. “I’ve met a few druids in my time. None of them was really up on human sacrifice. There was a man over in the east who liked virgin sacrifices, but it was the virginity he was sacrificing, rather than the maidens, if you get my meaning.”

“A deaf horse would get your meaning,” Leon said.

“Sorry, my lord,” Gwaine said with a mock bow. “ I didn’t mean to offend your tender sensibilities. I don’t think the kid’s got anything to do with this. His father moved here after the purge and didn’t really mingle. There’ve been rumours going around ever since. It doesn’t take much to go from hermit to witch and that got passed down to the kid. The entire village has been waiting for this for twenty years. We were just lucky enough to be caught in the middle of it all.”

“Excellent,” Leon said. “And what if the boy is a sorcerer?” Gwaine didn’t answer that, just went up to the door of the house and knocked on it.

“Who is it?” Taran asked from inside.

“Sir Leon and Sir Gwaine, from the tavern,” Leon said. “Can we come in?”

There was the sound of a bar being pulled up and the door swung open to reveal Taran, looking pale and lost in the shadows of the house.

“Come in,” he said, stepping aside.

“Thank you.”

*

They cannot leave the valley, they throw themselves at the invisible barriers, one after another, but they all hit an unseen wall, power that traps them here. They howl and screech their agony, but there is nothing they can do. The girl was not enough, not enough by far, and the first part of the spell has failed, broken by a human too stupid to understand the pact’s meaning.

More humans will come, they tell themselves, and they will become more powerful with each one that comes and eventually, eventually, they will break out, past that wall, and they will walk the earth properly again.

Until then, they howl and rage at their imprisonment, and every time one of them forgets and goes too far, coming up against that invisible barrier, it makes them angrier still.

*

“Where would she have gone?” Leon asked.

“I don’t know,” Taran said, his shoulders slumping. “She was never the sort to run off. I mean, there are other people in the village who have their places to go when they’re angry or upset, but not Rhiannon, she never hid from anything.”

“And you’d just asked the girl to marry you?” Gwaine asked.

“Yes.”

“And she said…?”

“She wanted to think about it,” Taran replied.

“Isn’t that just a way of saying no?” Gwaine asked.

“No,” Taran said immediately, without hesitating a second. “She would have said no to my face. She really wanted to think about it.”

“So she went somewhere to think about it, then.”

“The only thing I can think of is that she might have gone to ask the angels,” Taran told them.

“The angels?” Gwaine asked.

“In the valley,” Taran explained, as though that should make sense.

“There are angels in a valley?” Leon asked, confused.

“Not real angels,” Taran laughed. “It’s just what the stones are called by the villagers here. They’re all lined up along the edges of the valley and there are holes in them so the make sounds like singing. You can hear them when the wind’s in the right direction.”

“And people ask them things?” Leon asked.

“Yes, it’s old folklore. If you want to know the answer to a question you go and ask the angels and they give you an answer. But only one answer per person.” He shrugged. “No one really talks about it. But sometimes you see people going up there.”

“Have you ever been up there?” Gwaine asked.

“No,” Taran laughed. “I don’t believe in their angels. Neither did my Dad. He always said that Natural philosophy beat superstition every day of the week.”

“Natural philosophy?” Gwaine asked.

“Yeah, he was into finding out about things. He’d cut up dead animals to see how they worked. He always said that he believed that everything could be counted and understood.”

“What about magic?”

“Never did magic. He wasn’t a sorcerer!” Taran snapped. “Never.”

“We’re not accusing him of anything,” Leon assured him. “But did he ever do any research into magic?”

“No. He couldn’t stand the stuff. Said that it went against the brain. Not that he approved of the purge… especially not when people started thinking he was a sorcerer just because he liked to use his brain.”

“Right,” Leon said. Taran seemed to realise who he was talking to all of a sudden and his eyes went wide.

“Not that he ever meant anything against the king, of course,” he said, stumbling a bit.

“Back to the angels,” Gwaine said, tactlessly changing subjects, though tactless or not it was a move Leon was more than grateful for.

“Right… like I said, she might have gone to ask the angels for advice. But people do that all the time, it’s not like that could have hurt her.”

“Where is this valley?” Leon asked.

“North a ways, in the forest,” Taran told them, pointing at the north wall of his cottage.

“That’s on our way,” Leon said with a smile. “We can take a look.”

“Really?” Taran asked.

“Happy to,” Gwaine said. “We’re knights after all. We’ve vowed to protect the people of Camelot.”

“Precisely,” Leon said, flatly, giving Gwaine as hard a look as he could. Gwaine just smiled back.

“We’ll bring Rhiannon back if we can,” Gwaine said.

“Thank you, so much.”

“You’ll need to take us to this valley,” Leon said.

“Of course, when?”

“Right now,” Leon told him. “We have a mission to complete for the prince and we must complete it as soon as possible.” Taran’s eyes went wide again.

“Oh… right then,” he said.

*

The journey to the valley wasn’t a difficult one, and there was a flattened line of grass and undergrowth towards it, worn down by years of footsteps.

“Looks popular,” Gwaine said.

“Local pilgrimage,” Leon said, keeping his voice down. Taran was only a few paces ahead of them and he kept looking back, as though expecting them to disappear.

“Not a story I’ve ever heard before,” Gwaine offered.

They rounded the top of a hill and that’s when they heard it. The wind had changed, coming towards them from the north rather than pushing them onwards from the south, and on it there was the sound of…

“Is that screaming?” Gwaine asked.

“No,” Taran said, turning. “That’s the angels.”

“That’s the angels?” Gwaine asked, he looked unnerved and Leon couldn’t blame him. It sounded like someone being tortured. “I thought you said they sang.”

“The wind must be higher than usual,” Taran said with a shrug. “When there are strong winds, the rocks make stranger sounds.”

The tone was making shivers tingle up Leon’s spine and he could hardly keep himself from shuddering at the sensation, which seemed to be cutting right into the base of his skull.

“We should go onwards,” he said, suddenly aware that they had stopped moving. No one took a step forwards. “Right.” He forced his feet to move, forwards.

“That sound,” Gwaine said. “Have you heard anything like it?” he asked.

“Once,” Leon said. “A long time ago.”

“What was it? A monster?”

“No,” Leon said, drawing in a deep breath and letting it out as slowly as he could. “Horses.”

“Horses?”

“My father’s stable collapsed in a storm – the wood had rotted. Two of the horses were trapped in there, and huge splinters of the roof beams had cut into them. I woke up to hear them screaming. It sounded just like that.” Gwaine didn’t say anything just continued walking. Leon had been expecting something, perhaps a story about a monster Gwaine had met, or maybe commiserations, he had been bracing himself for whatever would come, but all that came was silence.

They reached the edge of the wood, and it might have been the noise, but this wood seemed different somehow, from the woods near Camelot. It looked darker and the trees looked twisted and malformed.

“It’s just ahead,” Taran said.

“I think we can find our way from here,” Gwaine said, beating Leon to it. “You should go back.”

“Go back?” Taran looked at them in disbelief. “You want me to go back? It’s just a valley. Those noises are just the wind blowing over holes in some old stones. You can’t tell me to go back. This is Rhiannon. I’m not going to just leave her.”

“Your bravery is commendable,” Leon said, “but we don’t even know she’s in there. We’re trained, you’re not.”

“There’s nothing in there to be trained for. It’s just a valley, a river, a few pools, and the angel stones. That’s all.”

“Go back to the village, stay there until we come back,” Gwaine said. “You’re probably right and there’s nothing there. But, if that’s the case, why would you need to come anyway?”

“Fine,” Taran said. “I’ll go back. But you come and find me if you see anything that could help find Rhiannon, okay?”

“Of course” Leon assured him.

Taran still looked unconvinced when he turned back, but he did turn back, heading towards the village, and Gwaine and Leon were left standing on the edge of the forest.

“It’s just the wind,” Gwaine said, as the scream rose to a new pitch. “When we get back to Camelot I’m going to tell the others that you were terrified of the wind.”

“I’m terrified of the wind?” Leon asked. “I don’t see you running in first.”

“Well, you have seniority,” Gwaine pointed out. Leon looked at him and then sighed.

“Fine, if you’re too scared,” he smiled and then stepped forwards. Nothing happened.

He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting to happen, but almost certainly something. Maybe he had been expecting the scream to change somehow, or for the ground to swallow him up. But there was nothing and all that had happened was that he felt a bit stupid.

“See, perfectly safe,” he said, turning back to Gwaine. Gwaine nodded and then walked past him, taking the lead.

They walked on until the ground began to slope downwards a little, and they followed it down.

“A bit of a trek for a young girl to make on her own.”

“She’d been before, grown up in the area,” Gwaine pointed out. “She probably knew this wood like the back of her hand. Never get lost in here.”

“Which discounts one theory about her disappearance,” Leon said.

Suddenly, hulking out of the green and brown in front of them, the land to either side of them shot up in rocky walls, and a small river, more of a fat stream really, bent in front of them, winding between the cliffs.

“I think this might be our place,” Gwaine said.

As if in answer, the screaming noise came again, so loud now that it almost drowned out thought.

*

Humans, right on the edge of their awareness. Coming for them, towards them. They hadn’t had to wait long at all, and these two felt strong too. This might satisfy their hunger for a little while.

They stilled themselves and quieted down. The humans were coming, and they couldn’t scare them off.

*

The screaming ceased completely and Leon and Gwaine turned to look at each other in astonishment.

“I thought Taran said it was the wind,” Gwaine said.

“He did. It must have died down.”

“Look at the branches,” Gwaine said, looking upwards. Leon followed his gaze to the canopy of the forest, where the tree branches were buffeted by a strong wind still.

“Maybe the wind up there’s different from the wind by the stones.”

“Maybe,” Gwaine agreed, but he didn’t sound convinced, and Leon didn’t blame him, because he wasn’t either.

“So… let’s go and meet the angels,” Gwaine said, heading for the gap.

“Wait.” Leon said. Gwaine paused by the gap in the cliff that the river wound through.

“What?”

“Swords drawn?” Leon suggested.

“I’m not sure that swords work against angels,” Gwaine said, but he drew his blade anyway and then he stepped in.

*

The first human passed through the entrance, but he wasn’t near enough yet, not near enough for them to reach him. They didn’t have the strength yet to act, apart from through the water. He would come to the water.

*

As soon as he stepped through into the valley, Gwaine felt a wind curl around him, pulling him inwards, like it was guiding him. He fought to keep his footing and backed against the cliff face, where the wind couldn’t get behind him. It whipped up faster, but it only pushed him further into the rock face.

This wind wasn’t natural. Taran could talk as much as he wanted about the valley being a local folk story, but this wind was trying to reach him, he could feel it, as certainly as he could feel anything. Gwaine was good at knowing when things were trying to kill him; it was a basic survival trait.

He tried to call a warning to Leon, but the words were snatched away as soon as they came out of his mouth, carried off by the wind in the opposite direction.

So when Leon walked in, he had no idea what was there.

The wind had worked itself up into a frenzy now, and as soon as Leon walked in he was dragged forwards.

It took all the effort that Gwaine could muster to prise one arm from the wall, where the wind had forced it back, and stretch it out to reach Leon were he stood. He managed to tangle it in the arm of Leon’s chain mail for a second, but it was long enough for Leon to twist his arm round and grasp at his wrist.

For a moment, Gwaine was sure that his arm was going to pop out of his shoulder, but then Leon was able to get purchase on a rock with his foot and shove himself against the rock face too.

*

They couldn’t reach them. They kept trying to grasp at them, but their efforts skated past, like the humans were protected somehow.

They screamed.

*

“Fuck!” Gwaine yelled as the screaming started again, louder this time, echoing around the valley. “What is that?”

“I think it’s the wind,” Leon replied, leaning as close as he could, and still having to yell to be heard.

“Not you too. That’s not wind. Trust me. I know wind. It doesn’t act like that.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Leon said. “Whatever’s pretending to be wind, I think that’s what’s making the noise.”

“How are we supposed to fight wind?” Gwaine asked him. “And why do we have to? Taran made it sound like people come here all the time. If they’re attacked by vicious wind monsters every time, you’d think they would have stopped.”

“What’s changed?”

“Since when?”

“Since people last came here?”

“I don’t know,” Gwaine shouted back.

“The girl went missing.”

“You think she definitely came here?”

“Unless you think murderous wind is a coincidence,” Leon told him. He looked back the way that they had come and wondered how much effort it would take to get back out of the exit, or even if they could. He was pondering the logistics of edging along the cliff until they got to the entrance when Gwaine’s hand tapped his arm insistently.

“What?” He asked, turning. Gwaine wasn’t even looking at him, his face was turned into the valley.

“I think I might have found our girl,” Gwaine said, nodding, in as much as the wind would let him, towards the pool in the centre of the valley. It took Leon a second to realise what he was looking at, then he saw the white shapes by the edge of the water, a small pile, haphazardly arranged like someone had dropped them: bones. Bleach white and picked clean. The skull upside down like it had rolled.

“Can’t be her,” Leon said. “That hardly looks like a recent death.”

“I think it might have been mentioned if this place was decorated with human skeletons,” Gwaine pointed out. “Who else do you think it is?”

“It’s too clean,” Leon pointed out.

“Nothing about this situation is normal,” Gwaine shouted back. “That’s Rhiannon. I bet you.”

“What happened to her?”

“There’s only one way to find out,” Gwaine said, grinning.

“Wha-“ Before Leon could finish even the first word of his question, Gwaine moved. He used his arms to lever himself off the wall and the wind caught him easily, before Leon could even make a move to reach after him.

“Hello!” Gwaine yelled. His own voice echoed back at him. Behind him, Leon tried to pull himself off the rock, but the wind was too strong for him to get any leverage. “Who are you? What do you want?”

The screaming died down and Leon was able to pull himself away from the rock, the wind all but stilling to a light breeze.

*

They didn’t understand the question. Who were they? Who were they? They were… they could not remember what they were. They were here and that was all that mattered. They were here and they were trapped.

What did they want? They knew what they wanted. They wanted to feast.

*

The sudden renewal of the winds, as they went from breeze to gale in the blink of an eye, took Gwaine by surprise, forcing him closer and closer to the pool.

Leon, however, seemed to have been forgotten. The wind near him was just as still as it had been before, the sort of calm that sailors would curse, the kind of calm that came before a battle or in the moment you loosed an arrow towards your prey on a hunt.

He saw Gwaine, swept almost off his feet, and acted without engaging his brain.

Since the… Morgana incident, he had felt like he was in some magic spell where time stood still. His body had been itching to do something, always hyper-aware of the threat lurking outside the walls of Camelot, but with nothing to attack.

It was a great relief to finally have something to aim his frustration at, even if it was only the wind, and he charged towards Gwaine.

He hit Gwaine with his full weight, bursting through the small tornado that seemed to have pulled itself together around him, and barrelling them both out of the way.

The wind slowed him down though, tugging at him, and he didn’t have the momentum. Enough to knock Gwaine out of the funnel of wind, but not enough to drag himself all the way through it as well.

Gwaine was pushed to the outside edge, where the wind picked him up and threw him to the other side of the valley, hurling him against the rock of the cliff hard.

Leon, falling into the centre of the wind, only succeeded in swapping himself for Gwaine.

He was lifted up from the ground entirely, and a shout of alarm dragged itself from his lips involuntarily, though it was thankfully lost in the roar of the winds.

He could see Gwaine stand up, even blurred as his vision was by the gale, but then he was being propelled backwards, fast, flying through the air, and as quickly as he had started going backwards, he stopped, hanging in the air for one long second before it stopped and he dropped.

The splash and sudden cold of the water were the last things he remembered for a long time.

*

Morgause was restless, but not restless in fever dreams, Morgana knew those well by now, her sister’s injuries had made her delirious in the first few instances; now she tossed and turned on the small pallet and her voice murmured words of magic.

Morgana knelt beside her and tried to cool her down with a damp cloth, but it did no good. The words kept coming, flowing out so fast that Morgana couldn’t even recognise if it was magic that Morgause was speaking any more, or just gibberish.

She would pay them back for this, Morgana knew. She would not let them get away with having cut her sister down so far, leaving her broken and lost. That was too much for anyone to bear. Arthur, Uther and all of those brave knights of his, so willing to give up their lives for a worthless man. Merlin and Gaius and all of them… and Gwen, little Gwen who had always, it seemed been waiting to steal Morgana’s place.

Her hand was grabbed in a grip so tight that she had to gasp in pain, and Morgana broke from her reverie to see that her sister was wide awake, sitting up and looking at her with huge, open eyes, transfixed.

“Sister?” Morgana asked, wincing at the pain in her wrist. “What is it?” Morgause said nothing, just stared through her as though she wasn’t even there. “Sister? Say something…”

At Morgana’s plea, Morgause did indeed say something, but not what Morgana had wanted to hear – words of reassurance or greeting – more of the syllables from before, but clearer this time and undoubtedly magical.

Morgause’s eyes flashed with gold and then she slumped back, releasing Morgana’s hand instantly, her eyes fluttering closed.

Morgana could not breathe for a second, her heart in her throat. What had happened? The magic that Morgause had done seemed not to have done anything in particular nearby, but she could not doubt that her sister had performed magic.

Morgause’s sleep seemed easier now, her breathing even and no words escaping on each breath out. She even seemed to be smiling a little, but Morgana was none the wiser.

“You need to wake up,” she said to her sleeping sister. “You need to wake up because I don’t think I can do this alone. Arthur hunts us both; he knows that I am still alive. Please, sister. Help me. Agravaine can only guard us so long.”

There was, unsurprisingly, no reply.

*

There was something wrong. They had surged to feast on the newcomer, but he was not… there was something wrong. At the moment he had touched the water a different magic had interfered, it had blocked their connection for a second, just a second and they had been unable to get their hold. The magic flared and they had feared it for a moment, and scattered back to their own hiding places, leaving him in the pool, half submerged.

*

Gwaine watched Leon drop like a stone, the look on his face one of astonishment. This had not been what Gwaine had intended when he asked for adventure. He had not wanted wind, he had wanted something he could see, something he could fight. Give him a dozen wyverns over some invisible magic trick any day of the week.

The wind seemed to have gone, but even if it hadn’t, he knew that he had to get to Leon. He must have hit his head in the fall, because he wasn’t moving. It was lucky he had fallen backwards, though. If he had fallen face down, he would have been drowning.

Gwaine kept low to the ground as he scrambled towards Leon, looking around him every few seconds, as though he would even be able to see their assailant if it decided to return.

He made it to the pool without incident though, and hauled Leon out. He was dead weight, and the chainmail and now sodden cloak did nothing to save Gwaine’s arms from strain. Picking him up would have taken more time to arrange, and the wind-monster thing from earlier might come back at any second, so Gwaine decided to choose expediency over grace, and just dragged Leon away from the water and to a small alcove type hollow in the cliff wall, where wind would be less likely to reach them.

He had been wrong. There was no head injury that he could see when he checked. No blood came away on his fingers as he ran them through Leon’s hair and across his scalp, unless it was one of those injuries that hid on the inside of the skull. Gwaine had once seen a man fall against a table one evening and then die the next day; After complaining of a slight headache, he had just keeled over mid-sentence.

“Let’s hope your head’s as stubborn as you are,” he said to Leon’s unconscious face. He had vaguely been hoping for a response, but he wasn’t surprised when none came. “I’m just going to go check on the entrance, now whatever it was seems to have gone.”

He set Leon down on the ground and headed out, sticking as close to the cliff as he could. He felt idiotic, bracing himself against the rock, staying clear of an enemy he wasn’t even sure was there, but reckless was one thing and plain stupid was another.

Gwaine reached the entrance in one piece, but when he tried to walk out, it was like walking into a wall. The air felt as solid as the walls of Camelot. He tried a hand, he tried a fist, he even tried his sword, but all three stopped abruptly, hitting solid nothingness.

“Well, if things were easy, they’d be boring,” he said to himself. “And I always did like climbing.”

Climbing was the last option, though, First to explore their rocky prison a bit better.

The valley stretched a good long way from the entrance, more of a crevasse than a valley though, Gwaine thought, as he walked through it. The stream ran all down it, surrounded by mossy boulders and rocky cliffs, expanding to pools occasionally, but never for very long before it bubbled away further.

The cliffs didn’t change much either, towering over him, their sentinel rocks spaced out all the way along, until, when he had been walking for a good twenty minutes, the valley grew darker. At first he had thought that the events of the day had taken up more time than he had thought, and the darkness was twilight drawing overhead, but he noticed that the valley, which had been so wide that three of him, standing arms wide open, would not have been able to reach both sides, was now distinctly narrower. He walked on further and found that the cliffs drew so close that he could reach both at once on his own, and he had to walk with one leg either side of the stream to do so.

Before long, the cliffs drew so close that Gwaine could walk no further. He peered into the darkness, and listened to the gurgle of the water that came from it. There was no escape in this direction then.

Gwaine looked up. There was one final ‘angel’ directly above him, bridging the narrow gap between the two cliffs, and this one – perhaps it was just his imagination, but he could almost make out a head, and a face, staring down at him impassively.

“Sorry to intrude,” he said, needing to break the silence, even if it was only for a few seconds and to a rock, of all things.

It didn’t move or speak and Gwaine would admit that he did feel relieved. The echoing voices of the angel rocks had died down since Leon had fallen into the pool and Gwaine was grateful for that.

Thinking of Leon, though. He had been gone too long. He turned back and began to think of how he was going to lug Leon’s unresponsive body up the sheer wall of a cliff. This was, he thought, the sort of thing that Arthur used Merlin for. Merlin who would, undoubtedly say ‘Do you need this?’ and produce some rope out of seemingly nowhere. But only the prince, ungrateful sod that he was, got a manservant. The rest of them had to manage alone, which Gwaine was all for in a general sense. But in a more specific sense, right now, he could have really done with someone.

Leon lay where Gwaine had left him, still breathing, thank heavens, and Gwaine reminded him that he had better wake up because if Leon went and died, then Gwaine would take forever to find Agravaine, because he had no idea where they were going, and Arthur would need someone to blame and that someone would, as always, be Gwaine.

“When really,” he concluded, examining the cliff face above them, and contemplating how to make some sort of Leon-carrier from their cloaks, “I am entirely blameless in this situation. You didn’t have to go and make a fool out of yourself by tackling me into a cliff.”

Leon didn’t answer.

“Really, I had it covered. It was just a little bit of wind.”

As if in time with his words, there was a familiar howl of noise and the angel stones sang out a mournful note again.

“Just a little bit of wind,” Gwaine repeated, trying to sound sure of himself. “If a knight can’t handle a little bit of wind… imagine what Arthur would say.”

Arthur, Gwaine felt sure, would be sulking right now, glaring at everything available before coming up with some harebrained scheme that was bound never to work – but then inevitably did.

More than once Gwaine had wondered whether Arthur was gifted with some sort of unconscious magic, because the number of times now he had seen the man take utterly irreconcilable odds and somehow win despite them, that was quite some luck. And then, at the end, he would act as though he had always known everything would work out, and order the rest of them to clean themselves up.

“Never thought I’d want to be Arthur,” he told Leon conversationally. There was still no response. “How angry would you be if you woke up to find that I’d cut your precious cloak into strips to make a rope?” No answer. “You’d probably throw me back down here again… Fine, I’ll use my own.”

*

There was something wrong. They could feel it. The magic had knocked something free. The man was there, but his soul…

Where was his soul? The soul they had wanted so much. Where had it gone?

*

Leon came to, blinking his eyes as they opened. There was too much light. He brought a hand up to his face and became aware in a strange sort of way that he was warm and lying in what seemed to be a bed. It certainly felt like a bed, though it was different from any bed he had been in before.

He remembered the valley, and the bones, and Gwaine being bloody stupid all over again and…

“Finally woken up?” Gwaine’s voice asked. “About time. You’ve slept through half of the morning. What happened to Mr ‘I wake with the dawn’?”

Gwaine was leaning in the doorway, looking entirely like himself, though seemingly unconcerned about the fact that Leon was in bed.

“How did we get back?” Leon asked.

“You really were drunk last night,” Gwaine said with a chuckle. “I thought you could hold your drink better than that.”

“Drink?” Leon asked.

“Yes… drink, at the Rising Sun. Last night,” Gwaine’s grin was growing.

“What about the Valley of the Angels?” Leon asked.

“Valley of the angels?” Gwaine asked, his grin turning into a leer for a second. “Not something I’ve ever heard it called before… but you weren’t up for anything like that last night. I carried you back as you told me that you could fight a bloody dragon, and then I got you back here, you collapsed face first onto the bed and started to try and eat your pillows. I know I’ve got a bit of a reputation, but even I wouldn’t take advantage of a man so drunk he mistook his own wardrobe for the King.”

“What?” Leon asked, knowing that he was unlikely to get a decent answer, but unable to phrase a more precise question.

“That wardrobe right there,” Gwaine said, nodding towards the item of furniture. “Went right up to it and bowed – or tried to bow, should I say. Called it ‘your majesty’ and everything.”

“We were on our way to see Agravaine,” Leon said. Gwaine blinked and looked at him.

“Agravaine?” he asked. “Why would we be going to see him?”

“Because Arthur sent us.”

“Arthur sent us to get a dead man?” Gwaine asked. “When you get drunk you really get drunk, don’t you.”

“I…” Leon said. Magic was the only explanation. It had to be. Agravaine dead, drinking with Gwaine, the disconnect with where he was knocked unconscious and where he woke up. But you didn’t declare magic in Camelot, particularly not now. He swallowed. “Yes, really drunk,” he agreed. Gwaine blinked.

“You alright?”

“Fine… just…” Leon trailed off.

“Morning after. Got you.” Gwaine walked over to the bed. “Don’t worry, I’ll make your excuses to his majesty. Arthur had a good cup or two himself last night, so I doubt he’ll be up to much himself.”

“Right,” Leon said, nodding. “I’ll just get… up.” He was expecting Gwaine to turn around and walk out the door. But instead, he walked right up to the bed and rested a hand on Leon’s shoulder.

“World still swaying?” Gwaine asked, looking less cocky than Leon would have ever expected him to look. He actually looked genuinely concerned. Leon nodded.

“Yes,” he said. “Completely off balance.”

“Turn up for the books when I’m the one telling you off for drinking too much,” Gwaine commented before winking and walking out of the room.

Leon stared at the door as it closed behind him and then he stared around at the room. It was definitely his room. It was definitely his bed. It was, after careful examination in the mirror, definitely him.

Magic, it had to be. He would have to inform Arthur and the king immediately. But how exactly to phrase it?

*

“You know, for all that training you do,” Gwaine said. “You could do with losing a few pounds.” His words were more of a grunt really, as he tried to tie Leon onto his back. Leon didn’t answer, which was a pity, because Gwaine suspects that his answer would have been something along the lines of ‘well if you put more effort into training then maybe you’d have the strength to lift me’.

But there was no answer. Gwaine sighed and adjusted the cloak rope, tying it more tightly. He had created a bizarre hammock out of Leon’s cloak and used his own to tear to pieces and strap it on. The result was that Leon’s body was, with no art or grace, sprawled across his back, one arm looped over Gwaine’s shoulder, cloak tied between some interesting places.

Leon was still breathing, and still warm – which Gwaine could attest to even through his chain mail, though the man’s damp hair was tickling the side of Gwaine’s neck, just under his ear.

“I’ll be needing you to buy me a drink for this,” Gwaine commented. “That’s all I’m saying.”

Plan A didn’t work, which Gwaine realised as soon as he set off trying to climb the cliff, had always been going to happen. There was too much weight too far away from the cliff, and it dragged him backwards, meaning that Gwaine fell backwards, almost on top of Leon. He swore, and looked up.

He rearranged Leon, cut his own cloak into narrower strips – starting each tear with his sword before finishing it by hand – and tied it into a longer rope so that one end would tie around Leon and the other around Gwaine’s waist.

“I’ll try not to bang your head again when I pull you up,” Gwaine said, looking over his shoulder.

*

The day was drawing to its close and Morgana was relearning skills that she had seldom previously had use for.

It had used to be fun, on hunts and trips away, to cook things over the small camp fire, but she had always left the more onerous tasks to Gwen and Merlin, her mind grew bitter at the thought. It was not as easy as it had looked to make a stew. She could start a fire with her magic, but the magic would not stop it from burning, or help her with the ingredients. She was left to her own skill. Tonight, the stew was edible at least, which was more than could have been said for some of her previous attempts. Bland, but edible.

She was spooning some of it into a bowl when a noise caught her ear.

“Sister…” She dropped the bowl, turning round. Morgause’s eyes were open, looking right at her, no sign of magic or fever in them now. Her voice was raspy and hoarse, though. “Sister.”

“What is it?” she asked, rushing to the bedside. “Are you in pain?”

“Yes,” Morgause admitted, “but none that you could help with. I shall not survive this injury, I think.”

“It was Gaius who did this to you, Gaius and Merlin,” Morgana said. “I will kill them for it.”

“I know,” Morgause said. “But… but you cannot do it alone.”

“I can manage.”

“Arthur has many protectors,” Morgause wheezed, wincing as though merely speaking brought her pain. “You cannot expect to get past them all so easily.”

“I’ll find a way.”

“We are in Agravaine’s lands, are we not?” Morgause asked.

“Yes. He has provided us with shelter; he always liked me,” Morgana said. “I don’t know how long we can stay before Arthur sends word, though.”

“He already has,” Morgause said. “There are two knights on their way.”

“Where?”

“They have run into trouble in the woods,” Morgause looked away, her eyes going distant. “I am not a seer like you, but my injury and my magic connected me to something in the forest – old magic, older than any I’ve used before. I saw them.”

“Trouble?” Morgana smiled in relief. “Then we have more time. Tell me where they are and I will see that they don’t escape it.”

“No.” Morgause said. Morgana stared in amazement. “If you attack directly, you cannot succeed. I saw that too. You need an ally.”

Morgana looked down at her sister in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“A spy, on the inside. Like you were before.”

“No one in Camelot will help me,” Morgana pointed out. “They made that more than clear enough last year. And anyone with any sympathy for us will be under careful guard.”

“Then you must find help outside Camelot,” Morgause told her. She shut her eyes for a second, drawing in a shuddering breath. Morgana watched with concern, but her mind was quietly working through her sister’s words.

“You mean Agravaine?” Morgana asked. “But how do I get him to go to Camelot? His arrival in a time like this would be seen as suspicious, surely.”

“Arthur has summoned him,” Morgause said. “The message is with the knights. If they get through then he will go to Camelot. If you work on him, then his loyalty will be with you, not Arthur. If they do not get through, you will be the first person Arthur thinks of. They will come looking for us here.”

“You want me to save the lives of the men who refused to acknowledge my birthright? The ones who mocked me?” Morgana asked. “The same men who almost killed you and deposed me?”

“Arthur cannot suspect,” Morgause said, her voice growing quieter. “He will be wary of everyone at the moment. He must have no reason to think Agravaine…” she broke off, breathing in and out carefully, “…more or less than what he supposes.” Morgana frowned, but nodded. “Can you handle Agravaine?”

“Agravaine?” Morgana said with a mocking laugh. “He’s already half in love with me. I just need to pour on more talk of the injustice of it all and he’ll be eating out of the palm of my hand.”

“Good,” Morgause smiled weakly. “The knights are to the south of us…”

*

As Leon dressed himself in clothes that did not stink of the tavern, he realised that he could not go to the king or Arthur with this. The greatest problem he had was that he did not know if anyone in this world he had woken up in was really who they said they were. He could not tell how much was magic and how much was real.

The only thought he could come up with, long shot as it was, was to return to where his last memory had taken place – the valley. If he found out what had happened to that girl then maybe he could find out what had happened to him.

He and Gwaine had gone at a leisurely pace – with no reason for urgency. On his own it should take him less time to get there.

*

The cliffs were more difficult to climb than Gwaine could have imagined. They were not smooth by any means, but the hand holds and foot holds were so strangely spaced that in places he could barely reach from one to the next. And some were so shallow, he could barely find purchase on them.

By the time he was half way up, his fingertips were bleeding along with his knees where he kept scraping them against the rock as he kept undershooting ledges.

“You know,” Gwaine called downwards to Leon’s still unconscious form. “This is almost fun… well, it would be more fun with better refreshments, but still. It has a certain charm.”

There was still no answer.

Gwaine hated the silence, and he wondered when he had started taking noise for granted. There had never used to be much noise, during the in-between parts of life, the parts where there was no tavern or danger, and he had used to manage perfectly well. But Camelot, it seemed, had worked its way into his brain. The city was always noisy, even in the middle of the night, and the knights, Merlin, even Arthur, were always talking or at least making some noise – even if it was the clash of training swords. It was a world full of noise, Gwaine contributing perhaps more than most.

“You know,” he shouted down. “If you don’t wake up soon, I’m going to have to start telling more stories.” Still no response. “Then you’ll have to wake up just to tell me to shut up.”

It wasn’t Leon who told him to shut up, though, from nowhere, the wind sprung up again, and as if they had heard his thoughts, the angels began to sing again, echoing, lonely and cutting right through Gwaine’s brain to send a shiver down his spine.

The wind tore at him, and he flattened himself against the rock as best he could. He was less than six foot from the top of the cliff now. The end was in sight. He just had to get up there, haul Leon out and then find someone who knew how to get foolish knights to wake up.

“Simple,” he said. The wind howled again and caught at his side, pulling at his arms. Gwaine dug his fingers in as best he could and held on for dear life. A fall from this distance would probably end up breaking his neck and then where would the pair of them be?

With the wind attacking him, it took twice as long for him to climb the last six feet as it had taken for him to climb the rest of the cliff, but finally he was within reach of the top.

He reached out a hand and shouted curses as it hit the same invisible barrier he had hit before. They were trapped.

*

Camelot seemed different as he walked to the stables. Maybe it was the sun, which was shining far brighter than it should have been at this time of year, but everything seemed brighter. The few servants he met walked with lighter steps and the tension that Leon had been feeling constantly since Morgana had gone, faded away into nothing. There was something in the atmosphere that almost felt like hope.

He shook his head to erase the thought and walked onwards. Just another sign that something was wrong. There was very little hope in Camelot these days.

*

Link to part 3

-

Merlin Reverse Big Bang: The Valley of the Angels, Part 1, PG-13

definewisdom — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 22:35:28 GMT

Title: The Valley of the Angels
Fandom: Merlin
Rating: PG-13
Pairing(s): Gwaine/Leon friendship and pre-slash hints. Hints of one-sided Agravaine/Morgana
Warnings: Sort of horror. Agravaine is creepy, Evil!Morgana
Word Count: ~23k
Disclaimer: I own nothing, apart from
Author's Note: Written for merlinreversebb. Many thanks go to my beta and to the artist whose work inspired this calamity_kitten, to whom I can only apologise for not managing to get any actual Leon/Gwaine in. I tried, I really did, but they rebelled. To see the work that inspired this please go and take a look at This art post and leave a comment!

Summary: Set between series 3 and 4. Leon is having trouble adjusting to Gwaine's rather loud presence in Camelot, and all of Camelot is having trouble adjusting to the aftermath of Morgana's betrayal. Arthur, uncertain of himself in his new role, sends Leon and Gwaine to ask his uncle Agravaine for aid. Along the way they find a rather strange adventure.

-

You could hear them from miles away, their mournful voices singing wordlessly to the skies. The angels, as the inhabitants of the nearby villages called them, singing, always singing.

They weren’t really angels, of course, everyone knew that. They were just peculiarly shaped rocks that lined the edges of the cliffs that bounded the valley. They had strange holes in them and, when the wind rushed past, as it always did, channelled down the valley, it blew across them and gave them voice.

But, although it was clear enough where the sound came from, and clear to anyone with eyes that the rocks were just that, the villagers still made the sign against evil when the high winds carried the sounds out of the valley to their houses. And no amount of knowledge would stop the legends.

It was said that you could ask the angels a question. If you dared to go into the valley and kneel by stream. You could ask them one question in your lifetime and they would answer.

No one ever admitted to having gone into the valley, apart from old John, who had used to be a cooper, and now spent more of his day emptying barrels than making them. He would sit in the tavern and tell anyone who cared to listen that he had gone in there one day, many years ago, and asked the angels what he should do with his life.

“And they told you to become a drunken old sot, was that it?” someone would inevitably ask.

“They told me not to join the king’s army, and it was well that they did,” Old John would say, nodding to himself, “Because none of them as did ever came back again. I got myself a craft and met my Nancy and we were happy. They did right by me, the angels. I won’t hear a word said against them.”

Some people would shift uncomfortably after he had finished his story, when other, less superstitious men would say that the angels were nothing more than nonsense and children’s stories. Some people looked into their mugs and avoided looking at anyone else. But that was the only sign anyone ever gave of having been into the valley.

On the far side of the village, far away from the light and laughter of the tavern, in the strange blue-grey light of twilight, when it was easier to believe in angels and in magic, a young girl walked away from the cluster of houses, towards the woods.

She had not perfected the art of walking unnoticed. She looked around her too much and walked in bursts and starts. It would have been obvious to anyone who saw her that she was doing something she wasn’t meant to be. Luckily for her though, no one saw her, all her friends and neighbours were wrapped up indoors, away from the bitter winds that always came at this time of year.

The winds picked up and she could hear the angels singing to her, just to her, calling out to her to come and ask her question.

Without looking back again, she forged on into the forest. As she walked, her pace sped up and up, as though she was being chased, though there was nothing behind her.

The girl’s name was Rhiannon, and she would not have taken kindly to being called a girl. She was a woman in her own mind and she had a question to ask the angels, a question that was important – to her at least – and it had been pressing on her mind for the better part of a week, though she had only just summoned the courage to talk to the angels about it. They were a last recourse.

In the grand scheme of things, her question was not one that, under ordinary circumstances would have had any great impact on any world but that immediately surrounding her.

A young man from the village had asked her to marry him, and she wanted to know what she should answer. Important to her, perhaps, but insignificant if it had not been for one thing that she did not know.

She had already asked her question, or her mother had on her behalf, when she was only a baby, not old enough to walk, her mother had carried her into the valley and asked a question. She had never spoken of it to her daughter and the incident had faded from everything but her mother’s memory. And the memory of the angels.

Rhiannon had no idea that her question had already been asked, even if she had known about her mother, she would have assumed that it would have counted as her mother’s question, not hers, but she didn’t understand the strange ways in which magic worked and, as she lived within the borders of Camelot, where Magic was prohibited on pain of long and torturous death, she had no way of knowing.

So she had no idea when she followed the stream to the valley that she was about to do something that was forbidden and would affect more than just her.

The voices of the angels picked up in volume and pitch, becoming less like a song, and more like screams of anger and agony.

The wind buffeted her face and tried to push her out of the valley, but she wasn’t someone who was easily deterred. She had made up her mind to ask her question and ask it she would.

There was a spot in the stream where it widened to a pool for a short time, with a miniature waterfall on each side and this was where you asked your questions. She did not know how she knew that, no one had told her, but she knew in the same way that she knew everything else that was common knowledge. She knew because she knew. It was as simple and as complicated as that.

Rhiannon knelt down by the pool, ignoring the howling that surrounded her, and not seeing the shadows of the angel stones elongating and leaning in towards her as she did so.

She plunged her hands into the water and gasped at how cold it was, so cold it cut into her like knives. Even the gurgling of the stream and the splash and crash of the water tumbling in and out of the pool sounded harsher. But Rhiannon was determined not to be scared. She would not be afraid. She would ask her question.

She shouted it over the wind and the water.

And then, in the blink of an eye, the wind dropped to total stillness and everything was coated in silence and shadow.

Rhiannon started, trying to pull her hands out of the water, but they would not come.

She looked up at the sky and finally saw the angel stones above her, but not spaced out as they should have been. They clustered around her, huge silhouettes jutting into the sky.

She opened her mouth to say something, but before she could, she felt cold running up her arms.

Looking down, Rhiannon saw the water trickling upwards, rivulets making their way up her arms, slowly crisscrossing and spreading until there were no gaps, and still continuing up her arms. And to her shoulders.

It reached her throat and she screamed.

*

The sun rose high over Camelot, as it had always done, and as it probably always would and, as he usually was, Sir Leon was wide awake, watching it.

Knights’ drills started early, but he was up earlier. There were guards to check on, reports to hear, rumours and gossip to unofficially listen to. There were even, he had found, a few moments of peace and quiet.

Or there had been before Morgana had made her move and the coup had turned the whole of Camelot into nothing more than a prison.

Since then, nothing had been the same. It was as though even the sound of his footsteps was different, though these were the same corridors that he had walked down since he had come to Camelot all those years ago, greener than a fir tree, to try and follow in his father’s footsteps.

Everything was quieter, more subdued. Everything was more still, like it was holding its breath or hibernating.

In his rooms, Uther was not the same. Leon was not the sort of person to talk ill of the king, but of all the things that had changed, the king was the most easily noticed. He was not there anymore, a shell of a man. Leon had heard people say that it was rage and revenge that had driven him ever since his wife’s death, and that all had kept him alive was the fact that he had a mission.

Now it seemed, he had nothing. Even Arthur could barely raise a twitch and every failed attempt at getting his father to acknowledge him was grinding Arthur down further, driving him to keep to his own rooms, his temper getting shorter and his manner getting darker and darker.

Leon turned a corner and almost walked straight into Merlin, who was juggling fifteen different pieces of Arthur’s armour, that Leon knew for a fact had only been cleaned and polished the day before, because he had walked in on Merlin doing it.

“Sorry!” Merlin said, but he was gone before Leon could say anything in return, swallowed up by the castle.

Yes, nothing was the same. The stillness of the morning, for example, was being broken by some drunken sot singing a ditty about a filthy shepherdess. If Uther had been…

Well, they wouldn’t have dared before Morgana. That was all.

He sped up, lengthening his stride so that he would catch the culprit before they made it out of the courtyard.

Leon turned into the courtyard to see a sight that he supposed he should have been expecting.

“Gwaine!” he shouted. Years as a knight had given him the sort of bellow that could be heard over a battle in full tilt. It was a useful skill. Especially now, as it seemed that only full volume would have got through Gwaine’s sodden skull.

“Leon!” Gwaine greeted him with a smile. “Still awake?”

“Awake again,” Leon corrected. “It’s morning.” The ‘you idiot’ was highly implied, but he did not say it. He had nothing against Gwaine exactly, but of all the new knights that Arthur had made that day Gwaine was the one who had both fit in the best and fit in the worst.

He fit in best with the people. There wasn’t a servant or noble in the entire city, it seemed, that hadn’t fallen to his charisma – apart from the head cook, who wielded a spoon with all the power, aptitude and dignity with which Arthur handled a sword. And even he, Leon thought, smiled a little indulgently when Gwaine wasn’t looking, or trying to steal his best venison haunch.

It was the rules, laws and courtly manners that Gwaine had difficulty with. In an assembly he stuck out like a sore thumb. It was like he was trying to be different. He wore his uniform with a casual attitude, like it was something he was trying for a lark. And Leon couldn’t get past that.

The worst thing was, he actually liked the bastard.

Gwaine ran up the steps with far more dexterity than any drunk should have and wrapped an arm around Leon’s shoulders. His breath stank of beer.

“You should have come to the tavern, you know,” he said. “It was quite a night.”

“It always is, when you’re involved,” Leon said. “Are you planning on coming to training today?”

“What? Is Arthur putting us through the gauntlet again?” Gwaine asked. “Doesn’t he get bored with it?”

“It’s training,” Leon said. Trying to ignore the way that Gwaine was swaying, bumping into him. “We do it every day. It’s part of being a knight.”

“You know, being a knight sounds so much more interesting in the ballads than it is in real life.”

“It can’t all be coups and reclaiming the city from the invincible armies of the undead,” Leon said with a sigh.

“Nor would we want it to be,” Gwaine said. “And I will admit that ladies do flock to the red cloak. But where are the epic quests and the fearsome monsters?”

“We’re recovering,” Leon pointed out. “At least allow us time to breathe before you wish more disasters on us.”

“Right,” Gwaine said with a nod. “If you insist, then I shall have to wait. Even fearsome monsters and hideous witches will wait if you ask them to, I’m sure.”

Leon was on the edge of losing his grip on his temper when he was saved, from an unexpected quarter.

“Gwaine,” Percival’s voice called out. “Did you sleep at the tavern?”

Gwaine’s arm released Leon’s shoulders and he lurched down the stairs, so unsteadily that Leon was afraid he might fall and break his neck.

“No sleep, my friend,” Gwaine declared. “Just lots of drinking.”

“You’ll catch it if Arthur finds out you’re drunk. He told you the day before yesterday,” Percival pointed out.

One thing that kept Leon sane was that he was not the only one who had noticed Gwaine’s certain disciplinary problems. Arthur too was having his issues, if the groan he made whenever Gwaine opened his mouth was anything to go by.

He made use of Gwaine’s sudden interest in Percival to make his way towards the training ground, trusting that Percival would get Gwaine there in fit state to be chewed apart by Arthur again.

As he was disappearing he only heard a snatch of their conversation.

“-trying to convince Leon over here that he should… where did he go?”

*
Training was a disaster.

The old knights had put up with so many new arrivals as affably as they could. Leon had helped, vouching for each one of them. But only Lancelot, whom they remembered well from his brief period as one of them before, was met with any sort of enthusiasm. Elyan wasn’t unknown to them, as Tom’s son and Gwen’s brother, but Gwaine was still the man who had badmouthed the king and snuck into the melee, though they did grudgingly grant that he had held his own in that arena. Percival had more than proved himself in the first quarter of an hour by beating Kay and Dagonet into the ground without seeming concerned.

But they were still interlopers and untried. They had saved the city, that was true, but no one knew how. There was a big question mark hanging over the whole affair. They had made their attack and then the city had been saved, but even they couldn’t give a satisfactory account of what it was they had done, and Leon hadn’t been able to help with that one either. There wasn’t anything to say that he hadn’t already said. They had been fighting a losing battle one minute, and then they had been fighting air. Lancelot only said that they had had to knock the cup over, he hadn’t said anything about how he had managed to do it, or why he and Merlin had gone to do that rather than taking out the warning bell as they had been supposed to.

Heroes were good publicity, and people didn’t want to ask questions, but they were still there, in the air, and no one ever provided answers.

Gwaine’s attitude hadn’t helped on the training ground either. He turned up drunk sometimes, late at others, and goaded the others into attacking him with teasing and commentary.

He was in good form today, drunk though he was. Leon had even raised a smile at some of his comments about Kay’s lousy backswing… though the rather smug comment about his mother had been too far, even for Gwaine. But he was definitely himself.

Until Arthur noticed, as he had always been going to. Nothing escaped Arthur’s eyesight.

Gwaine had managed to goad Kay into running at him messily, and was darting round him like he was dancing rather than fighting. Every time he dodged, Kay got angrier and angrier until he lost all sense of strategy and just started hacking at him.

Leon saw the exact moment that Arthur noticed what was happening, and he saw his face harden.

Had it been anyone else, he would have stepped in to try and defuse some of the prince’s anger, but it wasn’t anyone else; it was Gwaine and it was nothing more or less than he deserved.

“Gwaine!” Arthur’s voice rang out, making Leon’s own bellow seem hardly more than a whisper. The training ground parted, leaving him a clear avenue towards the combatants.

“Arthur!” Gwaine greeted cheerily. “Going to compliment me on my unbeatable skill.”

“Stand down, Kay,” Arthur said, the volume of his voice dropping down to almost a whisper. He looked like he was about to flay Gwaine alive. Kay, despite his anger, stepped aside, breathing heavily and Arthur lifted his own sword.

The fight was over in only a few minutes, though Gwaine put up a stronger fight than Leon could have expected.

“Worked out some of your anger, sire?” Gwaine asked, picking himself up of the ground. His smile wasn’t even completely gone, though Arthur had just made him look like nothing more than a rag doll with a stick.

“The next time you turn up to training drunk,” Arthur said, his voice so low that only those right next to them could hear him. “I will kill you myself. Sort yourself out and stop being such an idiot. This isn’t a game. It’s your life now.”

“Trust me, I know.” Gwaine’s smile dropped for a millisecond, and he looked deadly serious, but the moment passed and he smiled again, pounding Arthur’s shoulder. “Good fight. Thought I’d let you win for once.”

Arthur didn’t even grace that with a response, just stalked off the training ground, leaving Leon to put an end to the training session.

He made Gwaine do most of the putting away, noticing the way he winced at the loud noises of the metal clanging together. Apparently the hangover was starting to kick in.

“So, is this your way of getting me alone to have your wicked way with me?” Gwaine asked, sidling up. “Or did you have something you wanted to discuss.”

“Arthur’s right,” Leon said, taking a deep breath. “You need to start taking this more seriously.”

“Serious?” Gwaine asked. “Like everyone else around here, barely raising a smile for a week.”

“You’re not here to have fun.”

“Let me tell you a little secret,” Gwaine said, leaning in close. “It’s something that I learnt a long time ago.” Leon looked at him, trying to work out whether the man was pulling his leg again, but he seemed to be in earnest.

“What?” he asked, sighing a little.

“Right when things are the most serious,” he said, “right when the world’s all dark and there aren’t any clouds with silver linings in sight, and there’s no light at the end of the tunnel and you’re about to die.” He paused, frowning. “Right then, when you’re looking up a sword at the man who’s going to kill you and he’s looking right back at you. That’s when you really need to find something to laugh about. Anyone can laugh in the sunshine. But you need the laughter more when it’s raining.”

“So that’s you’re philosophy on life, is it?” Leon asked. “You don’t think that maybe some things are just too serious for laughter.”

“If you can laugh at death, you can laugh at anything,” Gwaine said. “And I’ve laughed at him a few times, I can tell you.”

It was as though his serious mood had melted away, replaced by another stupid grin. “Now that I’ve imparted my wisdom, I’ll be away. I hear the kitchen’s just got some beef in. I think I’ll see what I can scavenge.”

Leon let him go and started to tie up the bags.

He was all for seeing the funny side of things, but some things you did not do.

*

“I’m sending for my uncle,” Arthur said, almost as soon as Leon entered through the door of his chambers. Merlin dropped Arthur’s socks as he turned to stare.

“You’ve got an uncle?” he asked. “A living uncle?” Leon bit his lip to keep from smirking at the surprise on Merlin’s face.

Arthur looked at him like he was weighing up the pros and cons of using his manservant as kindling.

“Yes, Merlin. I have an uncle. Does this come as some great surprise to you?”

“Well… you’ve never mentioned him before,” Merlin said. “It just seems strange that he’d come up now.”

“Well, he has,” Arthur said. “Unless you’re going to accuse me further of inventing relatives for my own amusement, perhaps you’d take those clothes to the laundry room… like I asked you to do three hours ago?”

“Right,” Merlin said, dropping half the pile as he bent down to pick up the socks.

Now this, Leon could understand laughing at. Watching Merlin was sometimes like watching a farce being enacted in front of you, with an actor who somehow managed to keep a completely straight face.

Something that Leon was failing at rather miserably.

Merlin attempted to pick up a shirt with his toes and Leon had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. Arthur didn’t even bother to try.

“Take your time,” he said. “You’ve got all day.”

“I do?” Merlin asked.

“Yes, as long as you’ve already cleaned my boots, reordered my cupboard, changed the sheets on my bed, beaten the carpets and… scrubbed the floors.”

“Scrubbed the floors?”

“Yes, Merlin. Scrubbed the floors. What? You haven’t already done that? Then I suppose you’d better get a move on then, hadn’t you?”

Merlin somehow managed to keep all the clothes balanced for long enough to get to the door.

“Oh, Merlin!” Arthur called after him. Merlin had barely turned back when a dirty shirt of Arthur’s hit him in the face, sending him scuttling backwards, out of the door, which swung shut behind him.

Leon and Arthur watched the door for a few long moments. Behind it they could hear strange shuffling banging sounds and swear words as Merlin struggled with his load.

Leon dragged his attention back to Arthur and found the prince looking at him, his mouth open and his brow creased. Merlin’s performance had put his line of thought completely out of his mind, it seemed.

“Your uncle?” Leon prompted. Arthur’s brain clicked back into gear and he nodded.

“My uncle – Agravaine – yes.”

Leon remembered Agravaine. He had visited Camelot twice since Leon had become a knight. He was an intelligent man, though a little more inclined to lurk in the shadows than most. Leon had never had any direct dealings with him, and so couldn’t say anything definite about his personality, but he had seemed capable.

“With my father indisposed,” Arthur said. Leon carefully ignored the slight hitch in Arthur’s voice and Arthur ignored it too. “People are unlikely to trust me in his place unless I have someone with authority at my back.”

“The people will stand with you, sire,” Leon said. “They believe in you.” Arthur avoided his gaze. Instead, he looked down at a parchment in front of him, full of his own handwriting. The problem, Leon knew, wasn’t that the people didn’t believe in Arthur, it was that Arthur couldn’t quite find the strength to believe in himself.

“I don’t want to leave anything to hope,” Arthur said. “I have been deceived, Leon. I never saw treachery under my nose. I trusted her.” He cut his speech off and they had another moment of mutual ignoring before he continued. It was very important, when dealing with Arthur, to know when to pretend he hadn’t said anything. “I need someone from outside the city. Someone who hasn’t been touched by this most recent incident. Agravaine was my mother’s brother. I trust him completely. He is the best choice for this position.”

“You want me to fetch him, sire?” Leon asked.

“Yes, you know him and you know the area,” Arthur said, nodding more to himself. “You also know enough of recent events to convey the urgency of this to him. Though I trust that you will be… politic in what you choose to reveal in public.”

“Of course, sire,” Leon said, inclining his head. “Who will be going with me?” he asked. Arthur sighed and frowned before putting on his most engaging smile.

It was the smile that Leon knew Arthur put on when he was about to ask the impossible, or something that he knew you wouldn’t like and he really didn’t care.

“Take Gwaine,” he said.

“Gwaine?” Leon’s eyebrows shot up. “Surely Percival or Lancelot would be…”

“Gwaine,” Arthur repeated. “He needs some time away from the taverns to dry out, and heaven knows that I could do with some time away from his incessant talking.”

“Sire,” Leon said, thinking that he too could do with some time away from Gwaine’s voice. “Are you sure that Gwaine is a wise choice for… this?”

“Gwaine is…” Arthur paused and looked towards the door. “He’s a good man, though I doubt I’d ever say it to his face, and trustworthy. He can be charming when he puts his mind to it, and my uncle has always appreciated charming,” he smiled in amusement.

“But he can be a little… tactless,” Leon suggested.

“I don’t want to put my uncle off coming here before he even sets off,” Arthur agreed, “which is one of the reasons I’m sending you with him. You’re one of my longest serving knights, you know court politics and protocol better than any of the newer knights. Besides, I’ve noticed that the two of you seem to… rub each other up the wrong way.”

“All the more reason not to-”

“I need all my knights to work together seamlessly. You know that,” Arthur said. He pushed the parchment on his desk around a bit in an official, efficient sort of manner. “Sort it out. This is the perfect opportunity for you two to learn to work together.”

“And if it doesn’t work?”

“If he irritates you enough, I’m sure you’ll hide the body well enough that no one will find it,” Arthur said.

“Yes sire.”

Leon bowed and left the room. It looked like he was going to have to learn to work with Gwaine, because he didn’t think Arthur would appreciate it if he did find that Leon had cracked and killed the man.

*

“So Arthur wants us to go and fetch his uncle?” Gwaine asked.

“Yes,” Leon answered, leading out his own horse as Gwaine fiddled with saddle straps and reins. “We are to take news of recent events to Lord Agravaine and request his presence at court.”

“Why?” Gwaine asked, twisting around.

“Because Arthur asked us to.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Gwaine said. “Why does he need to come to court? I mean, it seems to be functioning well enough without his presence.”

“He’s an experienced member of the royal family who has previously served on the council. He’s a respected member of the nobility and he’s ruled his own lands well for several years.”

“Good for him… how does that help us?”

Leon sighed. He didn’t see the full point himself, but there was no point in arguing with Arthur when he was set on an idea.

“Given the King is currently… indisposed,” Leon began, choosing his words as carefully as he could. There was no good way to describe Uther’s condition – the way he looked through you as though you weren’t there. “Arthur feels that the nobility and the citizens would feel more comfortable if a member of court with greater experience aiding him as he helps the king.” Gwaine laughed under his breath, and Leon shot him an uncertain look.

“Arthur’s done well enough so far.”

Leon didn’t say anything – there wasn’t any way to answer that without implying that Arthur was in some way wrong.

He didn’t remember much about Agravaine, he had left the court before Leon had even joined the knights, and his more recent visits had only ever been short and they had been before Leon had gained any importance in court. He had been a minor knight – not the sort of person the king’s brother-in-law spoke to. But Agravaine had always seemed a little too impressed with his own importance. But he had only seen him from a distance, so he couldn’t possibly comment.

“Well, I suppose this is what knighting is all about,” Gwaine said, swinging up into his saddle. “Doing pointless things that waste your time just because the prince orders it.”

“Gwaine!” Leon said, turning round to make sure that none of the stable hands was listening.

“I know, I know. I can’t talk like that anymore. I’ve joined the dark side.”

“We prefer to think of ourselves as the good side.”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

*

“So,” Merlin said, rearranging Arthur’s pillows, in an attempt to put off the inevitable floor scrubbing. Arthur grunted, not even looking up from his paperwork. “Agravaine?”

“Lord Agravaine to you Merlin.”

“Sorry sire,” Merlin said, punching a pillow with a little too much aggression. “Lord Agravaine. You’ve never mentioned him before.”

“Haven’t I?” Arthur asked. “I’m sure I have. It’s hardly my fault that you don’t listen.”

“I listen,” Merlin protested.

“Of course you do.”

“What’s he like?” Merlin asked.

“What’s who like?” Arthur asked, still not looking up.

“Lord Agravaine.”

“Oh, my uncle. He’s a good man. Intelligent, a good advisor. He gave my father a lot of good advice in the years after my mother’s… Well, he has a good head for strategy, and the sort of mind that isn’t easily fooled. He wouldn’t have been taken in by Morgana.”

Arthur signed his name with a bit too much vigour and Merlin winced as he heard the sound of tearing parchment followed by Arthur swearing under his breath.

“Is that why you’re sending for him?” Merlin asked. “Because you didn’t know about her.”

“Shouldn’t you be doing things elsewhere, Merlin?” Arthur finally looked up and their eyes locked. “The floors still need scrubbing.”

“Yes sire.” Merlin said, settling the pillow he was holding back down and heading for the door. “It wasn’t your fault, you know,” he said, pausing in the doorway, daring Arthur’s disapproval.

“What was that?” Arthur asked, looking up. His eyes said that he knew exactly what Merlin had said, but that his manservant should know better than to repeat it.

“I said it wasn’t your fault,” Merlin replied. Unlike Leon, he had not bothered to learn when best not to say anything. It had always seemed to him better to say something that needed saying than to wait until later and regret it. “You trusted her. You can’t blame yourself.”

“It appears that my judgment is not clear enough,” Arthur said, sounding a little hollow. “My lack of judgement cost Camelot greatly and it caused my father to…” He drew in a deep breath. “The floors won’t scrub themselves, Merlin.”

“No sire,” Merlin agreed, leaving properly.

*

Lord Agravaine, as a close relative of the royal family, lived in style. He would never say that his own fortification was anything like as grand as Camelot (though he had tried to make it grander, but every effort only served to reinforce the feeling that there was something lacking). He had many servants, as all noblemen did, but none of them ever had quite the same level of deference as the servants in Camelot gave to their masters.

Which was only right of course, Uther was the king, Arthur the prince, it was only right that they be treated with as much respect as was physically possible.

But, sometimes Agravaine felt that his own stewards and chambermaids were… laughing at him. He could see it in their faces as they turned away from him, or as they looked down when they bowed or curtsied. They did not respect him, not really.

He also had woods, for hunting, not that the game was as good as Camelot’s, of course.

But he did enjoy a good hunt, and it was while he was on one of these hunts that he saw her again.

At first, Agravaine thought the movement between the trees was a deer, but there it was too narrow and there was something that made him pause, his finger on the trigger of his crossbow.

It was a woman, wandering alone in the forest. She was looking at him, looking at him where he stood with his finger on the trigger and she just kept walking onwards.

“Who goes there?” he called, not lowering his crossbow. He knew that, as a member of the King’s family, he was an easy target for anyone wishing to make a point.

“My lord, I must beg your indulgence,” the lady replied and Agravaine’s eyes widened in disbelief. He knew that voice, and now he looked more carefully, he knew the bearing of the woman walking towards him. “You were always kind to me.”

“Lady Morgana,” he said, letting out the name as a drawn out breath on the air. She inclined her head.

“I have been turned out of Camelot,” Morgana said, walking forward. She looked as beautiful as she had always done, the image of her mother, whom every man had fallen a little bit in love with – even Uther as Agravaine recalled. But there was something fragile there, her eyes were ringed in dark circles, her skin was pale.

He jumped down from his horse and walked towards her.

“My lady,” he said, going towards her. “You are unwell? Why would Uther turn you out of Camelot?”

“Because I learnt the truth, and that made me a threat,” Morgana said, accepting his arm as he offered it to her.

“What truth?” Agravaine asked, but as soon as the words were out of his mouth, Morgana stumbled and he had to hold her up to keep her from collapsing. “I am sorry. I should not question you while you are in this state. You may have my hospitality. You are always welcome at my house, Morgana, you know that.”

“You were always kind to me,” Morgana repeats. She sounds hollow and one hand goes up to stroke down his face. He shudders at the touch. She is so very beautiful, even pale as she is. “But if Uther finds out you are helping me, he will be angry. He is not a reasonable man.”

“Then you shall stay in secret,” Agravaine declares. He knows Uther too well to doubt her words, but he will not turn Morgana out without any help. She needs to recover.

“No,” Morgana says. “I have need of a small house to live in. I am not alone.”

“Then I shall see that you get one.”

“Thank you,” Morgana says, before fainting clean away, leaving Agravaine holding her in the middle of the forest.

There is a small empty house nearby. It had used to belong to a woodcutter before he had been accused of magic and executed as necessary. It is far too rustic for a lady of Morgana’s breeding, that is true, but it is the best he can manage for now.

*

“When’s the next village?” Gwaine asks, looking around them in distaste. Leon sighs.

“What next village?” Leon asks.

“The next village where we can stop for some ale. My throat is parched.”

“There isn’t one for another day and a half’s travel,” Leon tells him. He reminds himself that is not particularly chivalrous to take pleasure in the look of horrified dismay that graces Gwaine’s face then, but there is something to be said for the moment. It has a peculiar enjoyment about it.

“A day and a half?” Gwaine shudders.

“You still have water, right?” Leon asks, not looking round, though he knows that Gwaine will be staring at him.

“It’s not quite the same.”

“You’ll just have to make do.”

Gwaine sighs, put upon and bored. Leon doesn’t actually blame him much for the boredom. The scenery has been the same for the past few hours. So much so that even the hills in the distance don’t seem to be moving.

It is another five minutes before Gwaine starts talking again. Five minutes of blissful silence.

“Do you know there’s a legend about that hill?” he says. Leon hums an uninterested answer. Gwaine’s pointing to a hill in the far distance with two summits. “They say years ago, back before the Romans and all their roads, there was an old druid woman whose lover left her, and she decided to follow her.”

“Her?” Leon asked.

“Yes,” Gwaine said. “Her. Definitely a her. The legend’s very precise about that. Anyway, this druid woman cast a spell to lead her to where her lover had gone, and it worked, but it formed a line straight to where her lover was, and the druidess followed it all day and all night…”

Gwaine’s voice droned on, recounting the adventures the druid woman had had on her quest, the people she had met, the places she had seen. In spite of himself, Leon found himself listening.

“Years and years past, and she still followed the trail of magic and every time she stopped somewhere, someone would ask her to stay just one more day, or to help them with something, and every time she would say ‘no, I must follow the trail’.”

Gwaine paused and looked out at the hills and Leon waited for the next words. They didn’t come.

“Did she never find her lover?” he asked after the silence had stretched out.

“I knew you were listening!” Gwaine cried with triumph and Leon couldn’t help but curse himself for reacting. Gwaine was never going to let this go.

“Just tell me whether she ever caught up with her lover.”

“Yes,” Gwaine said, the amusement falling out of his tone. “She did, eventually. After decades had passed she found her lover. She knew that she had found her because the glow of the magic grew brighter and brighter and didn’t go on any further. It was like a star, right in front of her face.

“But when she looked around there was no one there. She looked everywhere, and called out her lover’s name. ‘I am here,’ she called out. ‘I have found you, after all these years I have found you. Please, please show yourself.’”

“And?”

“And then she realised that the star was waiting over a huge cairn of stones and the reason she could not see her lover was because she was buried under those stones. So she lay down and she used her magic to cover herself with stones as well and she died of a broken heart. And over the years the earth covered the cairns and they became that hill.”

“They died?” Leon asked.

“Yes,” Gwaine said.

“After all that, the ending is just that they died?”

“Yes,” Gwaine said. “It always is, isn’t it?”

“If they both died, then what was the point of any of it?”

“I don’t know,” Gwaine said, shrugging. “It’s a good story though…” Then he broke the moment by starting to sing a rather rude song about a laundry maid and her garters.

“Gwaine?”

“Don’t you like this one?”

*

They reached the village one and a half days later, as Leon had said, and Gwaine had still not exhausted his collection of bawdy songs or tales. After the story of the searching druidess, there had been seven others, all of which had involved very grateful damsels in distress, and all of which had followed the same, predictable plot.

Leon was eternally grateful when the village with its small inn came into sight, because Gwaine broke off mid-flow and uttered a prayer of thanks to whatever deity he cared to believe in and sped off towards it.

By the time Leon made his way into the tavern, Gwaine was already fully embroiled in a game of dice with several patrons and, from the looks of it, losing miserably, even as he flirted atrociously.

“Ale for my friend!” he declared as soon as he saw Leon. “Leon, you will never believe how good the ale is in this place. Delightful. Truly delightful. Almost as delightful as the lady serving it.”

“Don’t lose all your money,” Leon told him, looking at the men surrounding him. “I’m not bailing you out if you get into debt.” He leant down then, until his voice was right next to Gwaine’s ear. “You’re wearing the Camelot crest. Your actions are taken as representative of the crown. In Camelot people at least know you and know to take no notice of you, here you might be the first knight they’ve ever seen. You need to show some restraint.” Gwaine ignored him.

“Lose?” Gwaine asked, laughing. “I’m on a streak, Leon. I can’t lose.”

“Of course you can’t.”

*

Gwaine wasn’t quite as good at dice as he seemed to think, losing as much as he won, but he seemed to be coming up about even, which was all Leon could really ask for.

Leon, on the other hand, was just enjoying the solitude when a young man came up to him. He was nervous, shifting on his feet, and his eyes seemed glued to the Pendragon crest on Leon’s shoulder.

“Can I help you?” Leon asked, looking around. No one in the place seemed to be looking at the boy. In fact, they all seemed to be avoiding looking at him, like they couldn’t quite bring themselves to do so.

“Uh… Are you really a knight?” the boy asked.

“Yes.”

“Then can you…” The boy’s mouth twisted and he hesitated. “Can you help me find her?”

“Find who?” Leon asked.

“Rhiannon… She… she lives here and no one’s seen her in days.”

“She’s your sister?” Leon asked. The boy flushed a brilliant shade of red.

“No,” he said, eyes flicking over to a small table in the corner where three older men were sitting. “I… I asked her to marry me. But she disappeared a week later.”

Leon leant back in his seat, frowning.

“Was there any evidence that she didn’t just leave on her own?” The boy stared at him for a long moment, his eyes wide. Leon could sense his desperation, but he could also sense that, despite the fact no one in the place was looking at the pair of them, that did not necessarily mean that they weren’t paying attention. Even Gwaine, half-drunk as he was, seemed to have noticed something, and had started shooting glances over towards them, looking more serious than Leon had ever seen him.

“Not really,” the boy admitted. “I mean, it looked like she left on her own. But I think she was going to say yes. She just wanted to be sure.”

“Maybe she’s just gone off to think about things for a few days,” Leon suggested. “She’ll probably come back in a little while.”

“That was a week ago, Sir,” the boy said. “Please. I know it’s not much and you’ve probably got more important things to be doing, but, please. I… I love her, y’know. And she wouldn’t just run off without telling anyone.” Leon nodded.

“I don’t see what we can do, but we’ll keep our eyes open for her… Rhiannon, was it?”

“Yes sir,” The boy beamed, as though Leon had already produced the girl in question and his heart sank. It was no use telling the young man that there was next to no chance of finding her. She was long gone by now. But it did sound suspicious.

“Spreading more of your lies?” Someone said from behind him and Leon watched the colour drain from the boy’s face. He turned. A red-faced man had stood up from the dicing table and was glaring at the boy. “What are you saying Taran?”

“Nothing,” Taran said shrugging, eyes dropping to the floor.

“Nothing, huh?” the man said. “That’s a knight you’re spilling your poison to. You’d best not be believing anything the boy said, Sir knight. He’s a liar through and through. Poisons the ground he walks on.”

“I’ll take your advice into consideration,” Leon said as calmly as he could muster. Somehow he had walked into an argument. “But the boy has said nothing for you to worry about. He’s just worried about a friend of his.”

“Rhiannon,” another drunk said. “Worried is he?” Leon groaned inwardly and tried to smile. He really did not feel up to a bar brawl today. “Worried we’ll find where he put the body, more like.”

“I didn’t kill her!” Taran said, snapping, his eyes going to the new accuser.

“I’m sure no one thinks that you did,” Leon said.

“Then you’d be wrong, sir knight,” the first drunk said. “We know he did. He’s no good, just like his father. Never good enough to speak to us, after he came here, was he. Kept himself to himself and stayed shut up in that house. Hiding from something, he was. And now our Rhiannon goes missing after he’s been paying court to her.”

“This doesn’t seem like the time or the place for this discussion.”

“He bewitched her, he did. Shut up behind those walls all his life with that father of his. Learning magic I bet.”

“Sir, those are not allegations to be made lightly,” Leon stood up, reaching for his sword where it lay on the bar top. “Please sit down.”

“Oh, telling me what to do?” the man said, advancing towards the bar.

“No, I’m merely making a suggestion,” Leon tried again to defuse the situation. It didn’t work.

“Yeah well, I don’t care if you are a knight. We don’t see your lot around here very often, do we? Never come round when we need help, only ever here when you need to help yourselves. And now you’re siding with a sorcerer over honest law-abiding folk.”

“I’m not taking any sides,” Leon said.

“Well, let’s see if you can take this.”

The man pulled back his fist, but before he could land a blow there was the sound of shattering pottery and his eyes rolled up into his head. There was a moment of complete silence while he wobbled a little on his feet, then the man collapsed to the floor, crumpling. Behind him stood Gwaine, looking with confused irritation at the handle of his ale cup – which no longer had a cup attached to it.

“I guess he just couldn’t take his ale,” Gwaine said with a shrug. Leon looked at him and he looked back, the rest of the tavern looked at them.

Two other men from the dice table grabbed Gwaine’s arms from behind him and he managed, through some feat of athleticism, to bang their heads together.

One of the other patrons made for Leon with a bellow, head bent down, and Leon sighed as he resigned himself to fighting. He side-stepped the man’s run easily and rapped him neatly on the back of the head with the flat of his sword. As the man was stumbling, Leon turned to Taran.

“You should get out of here,” he said, taking in the boy’s stubborn expression and the rather angry looks of the men around them. “Go! It’s easy to hide a murder in a brawl. Go home and lock your doors. We’ll come around tomorrow morning and talk to you more about Rhiannon.”

“Do you believe me?” Taran asked, his stubbornness fading a little.

“More than I believe him,” Leon said, nodding towards the man on the floor. The man who had run at him was dusting himself off for another try and Leon shoved Taran towards the door. “Go, now… and remember – lock the doors. Ale makes people do things they’d never dare to do under ordinary circumstances.”

Taran ran, dancing between brawlers, and Leon turned back to the man charging at him again.

*

“We’re knights of Camelot,” Leon said, helping Gwaine up the stairs, one of his arms looped over Leon’s shoulders. “We’re not supposed to get into brawls.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have started one,” Gwaine said, touching a huge bloody lip and wincing with satisfaction at the pain.

“Me?” Leon asked in disbelief. “I didn’t start this. You’re the one who knocked that man out.”

“I had to,” Gwaine said. “Solidarity and brotherhood and all that. Your fight, my fight.”

“If you hadn’t hit him.”

“Then he would have hit you and it would all have ended the same way. If you really didn’t want a fight, you should have just bought him a drink when he first started talking. No man beats up someone who gets him drinks.”

“That’s the Gwaine method of not getting beaten up then, is it? Buy more alcohol.”

“It works… better than your method of escalating the situation.”

“You are too drunk to be able to use the word ‘escalating’.”

“I’m not that drunk,” Gwaine protested.

“Yes, you are.”

“Maybe a little.”

“Maybe a lot,” Leon corrected, heaving Gwaine through the door to his room. “You need to sleep it off. I told Taran that we’d go to see him first thing in the morning and I don’t want to have to deal with you hung-over as well as whatever mess this is we’ve found.”

“I thought we were on a mission,” Gwaine said. “Take the message to the Lord Aggravating or whatnot. Bring him back with us. No detours, no side trips, no stopping to look at the scenery. Utmost importance and all that.”

“He says that a girl’s gone missing from the village,” Leon said. “I didn’t think much of it, but the fight in the bar makes me think…”

“Makes you think that there’s something more going on here…” Gwaine agreed. “I see. But what would our Lord and master think?”

“Arthur would do the same thing,” Leon said. “He would never leave things here as they are. Sometimes things take precedence. He knows that.” Leon looked at him. “Why are you even arguing? I thought you’d be happy about the break in the monotony.”

“I am, believe me. I just wanted to know what made you change your mind.”

“I’m not actually as stuffy as you seem to think I am.”

“You mean you don’t dream of the code of chivalry?” Gwaine asked. “My illusions are shattered. I shall cry myself to sleep.”

“If you must, please do it silently. I’ve had to put up with your snoring all week.”

“’don’t snore.” Gwaine muttered. Leon pushed him forwards so that he fell in a slump on the bed.

“Yes, you do.”

As if to prove Leon’s point, Gwaine let out a huge, snuffling snore and Leon shook his head, going out to his own room.

*

Link to part 2

Link to part 3

-

Fic: Sherlock; Three Years Gone; G

definewisdom — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 15:49:01 GMT

Title: Three Years Gone
Fandom: Sherlock (BBC)
Characters: Lestrade, Sherlock, John, Mrs Hudson, Molly, Sebastian Moran
Rating: G
Warnings: Post-Reichenbach. Unbetaed atm.
Author's Note: My love of Lestrade, my reaction to The Reichenbach Fall and my annoyance at having to wait for canon fix-it caused me to write this. I needed to get it out of my head and onto the screen somehow. Under 3000 words, so there's undoubtedly more to come, though this is stand-alone.
Summary: The Empty House - from Lestrade's POV.

“Don’t turn on the light.”

The voice is familiar, the tone is almost familiar, and the figure, the dark shape in his chair, is definitely familiar. The only problem is that the person that they are connected with in Lestrade’s head is dead.

Very dead.

Took a gainer from a fifth storey rooftop dead.

Bashed his arrogant, brilliant brains out on the pavement dead.

But if there’s one thing he knows about the man connected to that voice and that shadow, it’s that he can’t stand it when you point out the obvious.

“Did John know?” is a safer comment.

“No.” Lestrade isn’t sure whether to be pissed off at his friend’s expense, or grateful that John hasn’t been lying to him for the past three years. His mouth decides on pissed off, though.

“You hard-hearted bastard.”

“There was a back-up plan,” Sherlock says, and it is Sherlock. Definitely him. The man leans forward so, in the dim light of the office Lestrade can just about make out his face. “Moriarty had a failsafe, in case I didn’t jump.”

“John would die,” Lestrade guesses.

“Not just John.” Sherlock answers. He sounds calm, but the way his eyes flick up to Lestrade’s face and down to the desk again tells Lestrade everything he needs to know. There had been a target on his back for the last three years and he hadn’t even known about it. He resists the urge to look back over his shoulder. “But he missed someone off the list.” Sherlock smiles to himself, thin-lipped and secretive. It’s enigmatic, random and completely impossible to follow, but that’s Sherlock.

“Does John know now?” Sherlock doesn’t answer. Lestrade swears. He’s about to lay into him – properly lay into him, when Sherlock changes the subject.

“You were demoted.”

“Not quite,” Lestrade answers. He finally walks in to the room properly, letting go of the door. “After all the stress and bother of having to try and hunt you down I was kindly given the opportunity of a less demanding and stressful position.”

“They give you the easy jobs.”

“They give me what no one else would look twice at,” Lestrade agrees. There’s a pause, almost like an apology and Lestrade sighs. “Not your fault that a mad, genius psychopath decided to destroy your reputation.”

“It’s my fault that I let him,” Sherlock says. But the moment of darkness is gone in a split second. He’s standing up – just as tall as ever. “Do you want your old position back?”

“What?” Lestrade’s off balance for a second. “How?”

“I couldn’t come back until I had it all – the whole web. Moriarty’s organisation was like hydra – cut off one head...”

“And three more grow in its place,” Lestrade finishes; he knows his mythology, whatever Sherlock’s opinion of his intelligence might be. It is startling to him how easily he has slipped back into the old patterns. “You get it all?”

“I’m hunting the key,” Sherlock says. “One man to rule them all.”

“What? Did you spend the last three years reading fantasy novels?”

“Among other things,” Sherlock waves a hand. “Not the point. There’s a man; I know where he’s going to be tonight, doing something very illegal. If you catch him, my name is cleared, your reputation is restored and you’ll probably find them begging you to take a promotion.”

Lestrade looks at him for a long moment. Trusting Sherlock Holmes was what had got him into this mess in the first place. 2012 hadn’t been a good year, with his divorce, his job in tatters, Sherlock dead and John shutting himself off with grief. It had been hell, but somehow he still finds himself trusting Sherlock. Somehow he knows that he’s about to make the same mistakes all over again.

“Will you come?” Sherlock asks. This is, Lestrade knows, the closest he will ever get to an apology. The words are steady and calm and subdued. Sherlock catches Lestrade’s gaze, and Lestrade feels a strange bubble of relief rising up inside him.

“Well... I suppose someone’s got to be there to do damage control.”

“Thank you.”

It was the first time he had ever heard Sherlock genuinely grateful, and Sherlock took advantage of his shock to sweep towards the door.

“The time and the place are on your desk,” Sherlock said, he opened the door and turned, framed by the light of the office outside.

*

The address isn’t unknown to Lestrade. In fact, he knows it better than his own.

He brings a team of seven officers, all young, none of whom have ever worked with Sherlock before – it’ll be easier that way. The younger they are, the less they’ll be blamed if it all goes horribly wrong, which is a serious possibility.

It is what most people would call a traditional stake out. He sits in a nondescript car getting progressively more bored, looking intently at the house opposite 221b Baker Street and wondering if he just imagined the whole thing.

“What are we waiting for, sir?” the DC in the passenger seat asks.

“I’ll tell you when I see it.”

“Right sir.”

Donovan and Anderson had managed to dodge the deluge of shit that poured onto his team after the Sherlock incident. He doesn’t often begrudge them that, just every other Tuesday. They were doing their job, they thought they were helping. And it was his mess to clean up anyway. But the buck stopped with Lestrade and he's not been able to get rid of the mantle of 'the guy taken in by the fraud' since.

He hopes he's right about Sherlock.

A car passes too slowly, and the faces disappear from the window. It pulls over and the driver gets out.

He is not the sort of man Lestrade would want to meet on a dark night. Just over six foot, mid-forties, dark hair going grey at the temples, clean shaven, muscular build and the attitude of a hunter.

Lestrade’s faced a lot of people in his time as a police officer and there’s a certain gaze that always chills him to the bone. This man has it. It’s a gaze that says ‘I can see thirteen ways to kill you and escape and I won’t even hesitate’.

“That’s our man,” he says.

“Shall we take him down?” the DC asks, eager.

“Steady,” Lestrade says. He knows the boy’s raring for some action. He’s been stuck with the same jobs Lestrade’s had, after all. “He hasn’t done anything illegal yet. We don’t have cause.”

The man stops on the pavement and looks up at the windows of 221b. Lestrade waits until he’s turned around and headed for the building before he leans forward to try and make out what the stranger was looking at. There is a light on in the window of what had once been Sherlock Holmes’ base of operations, and silhouetted on the curtain is a man that Lestrade knows couldn’t possibly be there – because he’s waiting in the house across the street, the house the unknown man had just walked into. But it’s an unmistakeable shadow, playing the violin.

Suddenly Lestrade knows the plan.

“Jesus Christ,” he breathes. “This is a bloody assassination.”

The man had been carrying a bag – sniper rifle, no doubt, Lestrade isn’t even surprised.

The window opposite 221b is opened a crack, just enough for the barrel of a rifle to poke out.

That’s cause enough for Lestrade, and he gives the order over the radio. He needs to get his men in there before John and Sherlock do something stupid. And they will do something stupid, he knows that as well as he knows the earth goes round the sun.

They go in quietly, though. If there’s evidence on this unknown gunman, then Lestrade bloody well wants it intact.

They make it into the room while he’s dismantling the weapon and he looks round in almost comical surprise.

“Drop the gun and put your hands on your head!”

It’s too late though, he can already see the hole in the window opposite and, though the light is still on, there’s no silhouette any more.

*

The man’s name is Sebastian Moran and there is evidence on him. The sort of evidence that no one in the world could ever deny. It is enough evidence for Lestrade to be banging on doors at three in the morning demanding that someone sign his goddam warrants right now, because they’ll be useless in the morning.

Sherlock had been right. There is a web, a huge tangled web, but what they’ve got in their hands now is enough to start an international operation of such proportions that Lestrade knows there’s going to be paperwork for weeks.

He gets a text at five thirty.

Still not dead. SH

Followed by another one from John Watson.

The bastard’s sleeping on my sofa.
Just walked in said hello and asked if I’d mind.

He has enough time to text back Some things never change before the Commissioner of the Met is on the phone asking him whether he’s co-ordinated with Brussels yet.

*

It is the single largest international operation of all time.

On the third of May 2015 Police forces in thirty countries performed co-ordinated raids on thousands of warehouses, homes and offices tied to the operations of one James Moriarty (deceased). More stolen goods were recovered in that one night than in the previous decade.

The newspapers reported on it – the usual seesawing between ‘amazing policework’ and ‘undermining our civil liberties. The prime minister had to comment, the president of the United States commented, every member of the G20 had to have some sort of a say.

And Lestrade found himself knocking on a very familiar black door and waiting patiently until it was answered by an elderly lady with a huge smile on her face.

“Hello Inspector,” she said. “Oh, it is good to see you again. They’re upstairs and the cake’s just come out of the oven.” There’s the sound of breaking glass from upstairs. “Only back for three days and he’s already at it again.” Mrs Hudson shakes her head. “Will you be wanting some tea?”

“That’d be lovely Mrs Hudson,” Lestrade answers, stepping inside.

“Just this once, mind you,” she says as he heads up the stairs. “It is a special occasion.”

Lestrade doesn’t bother knocking, just walks in to see Sherlock manhandling a life-size dummy of himself holding a fake violin across the room. John is sitting in his usual armchair sipping at a cup of tea and reading the paper.

“You’ve made quite a splash,” John comments without looking up. “The man who never gave up.”

“Yeah, well. You know what they say – today’s news, tomorrow’s fish and chip paper.” The public have been looking for a hero and, given as Sherlock’s been strangely absent, Lestrade’s been pushed centre stage. The Yard is having difficulties with it all, pretending that he was never out in the cold. Suddenly he's everyone's best friend. But police work's as much about politics as it is crime these days. Sherlock's watching him with that gaze he isn't used to any more. He talks just to fill the silence. “You should come forward, take your bows...”

“What? And steal your glory?” Sherlock says, finally giving up on the dummy and throwing it into a corner. There is a cracking sound.

“You just broke the table,” John says.

“It was old,” Sherlock replies.

“It was an antique,” John says.

“I’m sure it’ll still work.” Sherlock says. John, very calmly, puts his cup of tea down on the table top, there is a shudder and the wood seems to fold under it. The teacup smashes on the floor.

“Yes,” John agrees. “Works perfectly.” Lestrade decides not to get involved.

“The Commissioner wants to apologise to you,” he says instead. “Personally.”

“Will there be press?” Sherlock asks.

“Yes.”

“I’m busy.” Sherlock says, blasé as he had always been. Lestrade prays for strength and realises, in a bizarre moment, that he has missed that.

“He’s the Commissioner of the Metropolitan police force, Sherlock.”

“That doesn’t make me less busy.”

“It’s a great honour.”

“Not interested,” Sherlock says, picking up his violin.

“You’re the hero of the hour,” Lestrade says. Sherlock turns to him and stares.

“Really?” he smirks. “Have you read the papers recently, Lestrade? I think you’re getting a bit confused.”

“Of course I read the papers.”

“It’s not my face that’s all over the front of them,” Sherlock smiles. He’s right too. Some annoying reporter somewhere got a photograph of Lestrade on his way out of the Yard and it’s been splashed on every newspaper and news website that can be found.

“Congratulations,” John adds. “You deserve it.”

“You two are...” Lestrade draws in a deep breath and sits down on the sofa. “This is going to take some time to get used to... again.” In the amused silence that follows, the door creaks open.

“On second thoughts, I thought champagne might be more appropriate,” Mrs Hudson says, coming in with a bottle and four champagne flutes. “Unless you’re on duty, of course, Inspector.”

“Not at the moment,” Lestrade says. “I’d love some champagne.”

Sherlock begins to play some strange rousing dance of a melody, Mrs Hudson pops the champagne and John puts his paper down to lean forward and smile, his voice lowered so that Sherlock won’t hear over the music.

“He thought he’d be better off staying out of it,” John says. “Less chance of people saying he’s made it all up again.” Lestrade glances over at Sherlock’s back.

“Too much evidence for that now,” he says. “But it was probably a good plan. I take it that it was the dummy Moran shot.”

“Yes,” John confirms. “perfect kill shot to the head. Sherlock set it up then climbed out the back window.”

“And you’re just moving back in?” Lestrade asks. There’s a lot of subtext in that question. ‘He made you think he was dead’, is there, but foremost is ‘he made you watch him die’.

“Oh, don’t worry,” John says. “He knows he owes me one.”

“You’re being surprisingly calm about all of this,” but Lestrade isn’t surprised, not really. John Watson has never reacted to Sherlock Holmes in what most people would consider a normal way. It follows that he wouldn’t react to this normally either.

“We had the argument days ago,” John admits. “After he woke up. And anyway...” He pauses, glancing over at Sherlock. “Well, I was sort of expecting it.” Lestrade doesn’t quite admit that he was too.

“You saw...” He begins, because he’s read John’s statement of that day a dozen or more times.

“Yes,” John agrees. There’s a twist to his mouth that proves he isn’t quite as resigned to it all as he seems. “But it is Sherlock.”

The glasses of champagne are handed around and Sherlock puts his violin down to take one.

When they’ve all got hold of their own glasses, John starts to raise his, but Sherlock stops him.

“Not yet." Sherlock holds up a hand. "We’re going to need another glass, Mrs Hudson.”

She frowns and Lestrade can see that her ‘thank goodness he’s alive’ feelings are already being replaced by the standard background noise of Sherlock irritation. She goes anyway, though and Sherlock, looking out of the window, smiles.

There is a knock at the door and he hears Mrs Hudson opening it on her way back up. There are two sets of footprints on the stairs, two voices speaking – both female.

The door is pushed open and Lestrade is surprised to see Molly Hooper standing there, looking happy, if just as nervous as always.

“Now we’re all here,” Sherlock says. There’s a moment’s pause then, where Molly’s grin grows and Lestrade thinks That’s how he did it. Before a glass of champagne is being pushed into Molly’s hand too.

Sherlock raises his own glass with a smile that somewhere in the uneven ground between mocking and sincere, but he doesn’t say a word. No one does. They just raise their glasses and drink.

It might be a toast to Sherlock, for being alive. It might be a toast to John, for coming back home, it might even be a toast to Lestrade, hero of the hour (though he really hopes not). It might be a toast to Molly for pulling off one of the greatest cons of the century. It might be a toast to Mrs Hudson for being constant through it all. It might be a toast to laying the ghost of Moriarty well and truly to rest.

Whatever it is, it’s like coming full circle. Back to the beginning again, and Lestrade’s profoundly grateful that he’s going to get a chance to do it all over again.

PaperLegends: Tinker, Tailor, Wizard, Spy, Part 7, Final part (R)

definewisdom — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 22:08:16 GMT

part 6

-

The car journey could have been five minutes or two hours, for all Arthur was paying attention. He was so far into himself that he was oblivious. Today seemed to have stretched on forever.

He didn’t even notice that they had stopped until Merlin poked him in the side.

“It’s dark,” he said stupidly, looking out of the car.

“It’s been dark for hours,” Merlin said. “It was dark before we even left the hotel. It’s gone midnight now. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine, Merlin,” Arthur said, catching Merlin’s eyes. They held each other’s gaze for a second before Merlin nodded firmly. He looked, for a moment, almost wise. The idea was so alien that Arthur was suddenly very awake. He pulled himself out of the car and followed Leon and Lancelot up into the small flat.

“Welcome to HQ,” Lancelot said.

“We need-“ Arthur began, but Leon cut him off.

“Some rest,” he said. “You won’t be any good like this. Get some sleep.”

Arthur was dimly aware of a familiar looking blonde woman who waved. He waved back as he sat down on the sofa, and then there was some man who looked about seven feet tall in front of him. He stared for a moment, before sagging back into the cushions, determined that he was going to stay awake. They needed a plan.

They needed…

*

Arthur woke up last, and he could tell by the expression on Gwaine's face that it was bad. He had never known the man to frown for longer than a few seconds before, but he was sitting on one of the chairs and glaring at his hands.

Merlin was standing by the door looking vaguely sick and with a growing bruise creeping across his forehead.

“They took it,” Arthur said.

“Look on the bright side,” Gwaine said, looking up again and smiling suddenly, like someone had flicked a switch. “We’re still alive. We’ve got Merlin to thank for that, too.”

“It was automatic,” Merlin said. He was watching Arthur curiously, “I’m good at shields. You’ve both given me a lot of practice over the years.”

“I’ll bet,” Lancelot said, startling Arthur, who looked around and found himself the centre of attention. “Sorry, introductions are probably in order. This is Percival and Elena. Elena, Percival, these are Arthur, Merlin and Gwaine.”

“Nice to meet you,” Elena said, sounding completely genuine. Arthur looked at her, a little bemused.

“Thank you,” Arthur said, before turning to Merlin and repeating the words. He held Merlin’s gaze as firmly as he could. He wanted it to serve as a thank you for all the times before, as well, and he thought that Merlin kind of understood, because there was a quirk of a smile before his face fell back into perplexed irritation.

“It’s just...” Merlin waved his hand at the room. “We were so close. We were almost ready to destroy it and then they stole it." Arthur could feel the floor underneath him vibrating slightly, and from the look of other people’s faces, they could too. Gwaine reached out to touch Merlin's wrist and it stilled.

“It’ll be fine,” Gwaine said.

“We’re going to stop them,” Lancelot said. “We know who they are now. That means we can find them.”

“You're missing the point," Arthur snapped, noticing as the pair turned back to them, that there was something under Gwaine's smile, something darker, and Merlin looked as though he was on his last legs. His hair stuck everywhere and the bags under his eyes. "The odds are overwhelmingly in their favour. They have whole armies of people who don’t seem to feel pain. They have three magic users, we have… Merlin. You should leave. Run. Go somewhere they won't find you. Survive. This isn't your fight.” He looked around at their faces. Saw Leon staring back at him, face set in determination. “I'm the one who dragged you into this. If I hadn't showed up on your doorstep, Merlin, then you... neither of you," he inclined his head to Gwaine, who was nodding back at him slowly, "would be here. You'd still be safe. And Leon…"

“I’m not going anywhere,” Leon said.

Arthur wasn’t sure why Lancelot was here, or Percival or Elena, but when he turned to them, they stared him down until he sighed and looked away.

“No one's safe,” Merlin said with a sigh.

“They aren‘t going to kill the whole world.” Arthur said, “That would be ridiculous. And Morgana might be mad, but she’s not stupid. They’ll just go after those who oppose them.”

“You’re not going to do this alone, Arthur. You miserable, honourable, stupid prick,” Merlin said with feeling.

“To go up against them is certain death," he tried to make his point clear. This was his mess.

“In my opinion, a far superior option to uncertain death," Gwaine said, cheery once more. “So wishy-washy." There was a grin of approval from Elena, and Percival nodded.

“You hate my guts," Arthur pointed out, staring at Gwaine.

“Yeah, sometimes,” Gwaine admitted. “But sometimes you’re not a complete nightmare. And Merlin would follow you into hell and back." Merlin blushed a rather disturbing shade of magenta. “And I trust his judgement.”

Arthur nodded, slowly, pulling himself to his feet with a heavy breath. He looked at Merlin who gave a rather shaky grin.

“To hell and back, right?” he said.

“Then we’re going to need to find them,” Arthur said, glossing over the way his chest was suddenly tighter than before. Lancelot nodded. He felt Gwaine's hand smack him on the arm companionably. "Merlin, do you know anything about rituals like this?"

“If Freya is – was – right about what they’re trying to do, then they’ll need some sort of magical nexus, a place where a lot of magical power can be pulled together.”

“Find it,” Arthur said. Everyone was looking at Merlin now, which was a little better than them looking at Arthur, because at least now he wasn’t aware of their pity.

“Arthur!” Merlin protested, his eyes growing wide. “That’s over a year’s worth of research, at least. And I don’t even know where to start. There's no way I'll ever be able to-"

“Find a way." Merlin opened his mouth to protest again, but Arthur hadn’t finished yet. He lowered his voice, and he felt a bit silly doing this in front of the others, and Gwaine especially, but there had been a moment back there when Merlin had looked at him, a little abashed, and pledged his undying loyalty, when it had been like it used to be, only better. So Gwaine or not, Arthur was going to say this. "You always do." And, just like that Merlin's mouth closed and he nodded, standing as close to attention as Merlin ever got.

*

Merlin had commandeered the table, and the Internet connection. He seemed to be alternating between looking at online maps, and looking at strange websites with clip art pentacles at the top of them.

“This is ridiculous,” he said, and Arthur watched as he stretched his arms above his head. “I don’t know whether I’m looking for leylines, sites of magical significance or what. It could be anywhere. Do you know that there are seventy two places of pagan interest within twenty miles of the Department? They’re supposed to be sacred places or something.”

“You think that Morgause and the other two are going to one of those?” Arthur asked, leaning over Merlin’s shoulder.

“I think that they could be going anywhere. I might as well say that they’re going to come here and perform the ritual. There’s just as much chance of that as anywhere else.

Gwen and Elyan had arrived half an hour earlier, and Gwen came over to join them, smiling sadly.

“Isn’t it working?” she asked, looking at the screen.

“I don’t even know where to start,” Merlin admitted.

“Well, what are you looking for?” Gwen asked.

“Something that attracts magical energy, or generates it, or channels it. Something that will concentrate the magic so that they can use the stones to tap into it,” Merlin said. “These artefacts and rituals always take place somewhere like that. It means that the person performing the magic doesn’t have to be as powerful.”

“Concentrates magic?” Gwen said thoughtfully.

“Do you know somewhere?” Arthur asked. Gwen nodded, slowly.

“Sorry, it’s just something Gaius was saying earlier today. He was talking about one of the pieces of equipment in the Research and Development section. He said that he was trying to make something that captured magical energy and converted it into electricity. But he couldn’t get it to work. It gathered the energy and focused it, but he couldn’t convert it.”

Merlin stared at her.

“You’re sure about this?” he asked.

“Yes, he was talking to Morgana about it this… yesterday morning, I suppose it is now.”

“Morgana?” Arthur asked. “Did she seem interested?”

“Yes,” Gwen said slowly.

“That’s it, then,” Merlin said, sitting back. “All this time looking and it’s right under our noses. They’re going to do this in the Department itself.”

“But when?” Arthur asked.

“Traditionally midnight or midday give the best results,” Merlin said. “It’s some archaic magical lore or other. I never understood that.”

“During the day, the Department will be crawling with people,” Arthur pointed out.

“It’ll be crawling during the day as well,” Leon said, stepping in. “Morgause declared a state of emergency, that means people will be working round the clock.”

“Only people on the main floors, the R&D section won’t be,” Gwen said. “The state of emergency doesn’t affect them unless they’re working on something vital to national security, or something to do with a current case, and nothing to do with Uther’s death or the house you visited yesterday has ended up in R&D.”

“So there’ll be floors full of people to see us coming, but no one to see what they’re doing?” Arthur asked. “That’s convenient.”

“When something’s that convenient, I tend to think that’s because it’s been planned that way,” Elena said. “But you don’t need to worry about the people. They won’t see us.”

“What do you mean they won’t see us?” Arthur asked.

“Elena’s a cat-burglar in her spare time,” Lancelot said. Arthur blinked. So far in the few hours he had known her, he had seen Elena trip over a chair leg, her trousers and her own feet. “She says that she can get us into the Department.” He turned to Elena. “I thought you said that you couldn’t see a way out, though.”

“Doesn’t matter anymore,” Elena said cheerfully. Everyone turned to her. “Well, once we’re in, either we win, in which case we don’t need to worry about getting out, or we die, in which case we don’t need to worry about getting out. Either way, we don’t need to worry about the exit strategy.” She said it as though it was meant to be comforting. Arthur didn’t think he was alone in not finding it comforting at all. Even Gwaine seemed to be struck dumb.

“Are we sure they’re not going to try this during the day?” Lancelot asked.

“With Gaius there?” Elyan asked. “I tried to eat my lunch in R&D once, almost touched one of his experiments. I was out the door before I even realised what was happening. He knows the place too well, and he designed the security system. They won’t risk it while he’s there. He’s too smart to be taken in for long.”

“It works the other way too, though,” Gwaine pointed out. “If they can’t get in there, that goes doubly for us. Morgana and Morgause might arouse Gaius’s suspicions, but they at least work there still. Gwen and Elyan might make it inside, but the rest of us wouldn’t last half a second.”

Arthur looked around, thinking furiously.

“We’ll have to go in after dark, then, and hope that Gaius has gone home. Elena, show us how we’re going to go in, and let’s come up with a plan for what to do when we get there. When we know what we’re doing we can get some more rest. Most of us have barely slept.” He looked around at the faces that surrounded him, and wondered how they were ever going to pull this off.

*

Once they were past the main floors, they split up. It hadn’t been Arthur’s idea, he had wanted to keep them together; there were few enough of them as it was. But Leon had pointed out that Merlin might be better placed somewhere Morgana and Morgause couldn’t see him, so he could work magic from a distance, without them being able to target him. Arthur hadn’t been able to argue with that. Merlin could help them just as much from the other side of the room as he could from alongside them, and keeping him concealed might give them a small advantage.

So Elena had led Merlin and Gwaine off (Gwaine having insisted that someone needed to watch Merlin and Elena’s backs) leaving the rest of them heading for the Department armoury.

Elyan’s code got them through the door, and they grabbed everything they could, from protective gear to weaponry. They raided every cupboard they came across until they looked like strange metal hedgehogs, bristling with guns and blades.

The problem with carrying so much was that they lost the ability of stealth. Every step Arthur took seemed to clank, and he was sure that wherever Morgana and Morgause were they could hear every step he took. They were waiting for him, all of them.

They headed towards the stairs down to R&D, luckily not running into anyone. There were no call outs. The magical world was strangely silent. Arthur had his suspicions about that. Word had got out about Nimueh’s death and the stones. No one wanted to attract attention right then. And if the magic users knew about Uther’s death and the state of emergency, they’d no better than to risk the mercy of the Department tonight.

So things were quiet as they made their way down. No one spoke. Gwen and Elyan had managed to hack the camera and audio systems, so that no one could see or hear them, but people still seemed afraid to make a noise.

The room was humming before they even got there and Arthur could hear Gaius’ voice, clearly agitated.

“I’m not going to help you with this. Morgana! You don’t know what you’re doing.”

Out in the corridor, Arthur turned back. “I thought you said they wouldn’t risk this while Gaius was there,” Arthur hissed at Elyan, who shrugged.

“Maybe they need his help with the machine” suggested Gwen. “I found blueprints in your father’s desk earlier. They looked extremely complicated.”

Another voice replied, a man’s voice.

“Switch it on, old man,” the other man said. “I grow tired of your voice.”

“Stay calm, Cenred,” a woman said. Leon mouthed “Morgause” at Arthur, who nodded. “You will get what you deserve. “Patience.”

“We need to go in there,” Arthur said.

“No,” Lancelot hissed back, “Elena said it would take her at least fifteen minutes to get Merlin into position. It’s only been ten. If we go in there without magical back-up then they’ll kill us where we stand.” Arthur glared at the door, but he let it go. Lancelot was right, to go in there without Merlin was suicide, even more so than going in there with him.

So Arthur held his position.

“If they do this while we’re waiting for Merlin to get there, then I will kill him,” Arthur breathed.

“It’s still seven minutes to midnight. They’re not going to start it yet,” Gwen said. Arthur nodded.

“Switch it on, Gaius,” Morgause said, her voice clear even through the door. “Or we’ll kill your little protégée here.”

There was a moan of pain.

“Hostage,” Percival said, adjusting one of his guns. Arthur was suddenly very glad that Percival was on their side.

“All right, all right,” Gaius said. “Leave the boy alone… I’ll turn it on.”

“Finally,” the man – Cenred – said.

“Stand in the circle,” Morgause commanded. There was the sound of footsteps, heavy and booted, and then they came to a halt.

“Circle to the Centre,” Arthur said, looking at the sign by the door.

“Sorry?” Leon said.

“Nothing,” Arthur said after a moment. “Just something a dragon told me.” he ran one finger over the words ‘Research and Development Centre’ and smiled.

“Right,” Leon said. He didn’t sound convinced.

There was a sudden shudder through the corridor and then the entire world began to vibrate. A whooshing noise came, and there was a dim glow through the cracks around the door.

“Can we go in yet?” Arthur said. Lancelot checked his watch.

“Three more minutes,” he said.

“I thought Merlin said midnight,” Arthur said.

“He did,” Lancelot agreed.

“Is your watch right?” Arthur asked. The glowing got brighter.

“I checked it earlier, it’s as accurate as I can get it, to the atomic clock.” He was frowning, though.

“Soon I’ll have power of my own,” Cenred said. “Power to do as I please. Magic of my own.”

“They’re giving some guy magic?” Elyan asked. “That’s what this was all about, just giving some man magic?” Arthur frowned. Freya had been convinced that this was worse than that, she had mentioned it as a possibility. But the lengths that Morgana and Morgause had gone to, it didn’t seem like they’d do all that for nothing.

“We’ve got to go in,” Arthur said. “They might be distracted.”

“Two minutes, Arthur.”

Then the screaming began. It started muffled, like the screamer was trying to keep his composure, but after a few seconds it descended into hysterical shrieks of pain.

“Turn it off!” Cenred shouted. “Turn it off!”

“No,” Morgause said simply.

“It’s tearing me apart… I can feel it. It’s… oh-” Whatever else it was was cut off by another ear piercing scream.

“Sorry, Cenred. But the magic requires a sacrifice first, and you did volunteer for the role.”

“You told me I’d get the power,” Cenred managed to shout between screams.

“I told you that you’d get what you deserve,” Morgause said. “You should really have learnt to listen.”

After that Cenred didn’t speak again, he just screamed and screamed, never breaking, until one final scream broke off in a strange gurgle and then there was silence and the glowing stopped again.

“One minute,” Lancelot said in a shaky voice. Arthur didn’t say a word.

“What have you done?” Gaius asked. He sounded dull and quiet, after the sharp, clear agony of Cenred’s screaming. “Do you know what you’re doing? Morgana!”

And then Morgana’s voice replied, harder than Arthur had ever heard it before. It still cut him to the quick, knowing that it was her, that all along it had been her. Even before he had known there was something going on, it had been Morgana.

“I know exactly what I’m doing, Gaius,” she said, utterly confident. “I’m helping to build a better world. A world where magical people don’t have to hide.”

“And those without magic?” Gaius asked.

“They’ve had their chance,” Morgause said.

“Most people in this world don’t even know that magic exists,” Gaius said in what Arthur always thought of as his ‘reasonable voice’.

“And those that do have slaughtered us, chained us up and beaten us down,” Morgana said. “Do you know how that feels?”

“My dear –“

“I’m not your dear!” Morgana said, losing her composure.

Arthur looked across the doorway to where Lancelot was standing, flattened against the wall.

“Now,” Lancelot whispered, “We go now.”

Arthur flooded with relief, anything would be better than standing here, waiting. He saw the strained looks on people’s faces. He could tell that he wasn’t the only one praying that Merlin, Gwaine and Elena had made it through.

“On three,” Arthur agreed in a hissed whisper. He held up fingers to count it out, choosing not to speak. He wasn’t sure he’d keep his voice low enough to maintain the element of surprise. His body was flooded with adrenaline.

As Arthur’s third finger raised, they started to move, crashing through the door, guns drawn, yelling as loudly as they could. It didn’t matter what they yelled, really, just as long as they made enough noise to catch Morgana and Morgause off guard.

They succeeded, after a fashion. But whether Merlin had got lost on the way, or whether he was late, or dead, Arthur didn’t know. But Morgana and Morgause’s magic was still very much at their disposal and there were no convenient shields that popped up.

Arthur managed to make it three feet into the room before it felt like he was moving through treacle, every limb struggling against immense force as he went. Even opening his mouth was a battle against the odds.

He had to stop after only trying for a few seconds, the effort it was taking simply too breathe almost too much.

“How nice to see you all,” Morgause said, smiling serenely. Arthur took his first proper look at her – that he could remember anyway – and felt himself go icy cold. She was beautiful, true, but she looked cruel. Right at that moment she looked like he had always imagined the Snow Queen from Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale to look. All pale, cold and hard, with nothing inside her but ice. She raised a hand and he felt himself lifted off the floor and thrown back against the wall. “I suppose it’s only fitting that you be given front row seats to the end of your world. All you little people who’ve been trying so very hard to maintain the status quo. It’ll be such a shame to see your hard work crumble down around your ears.”

Arthur looked over at Morgana, wanting to see something there, something that he remembered. But there was nothing but a faintly amused interest. She didn’t look concerned or worried about him, or about anything. She looked as though he was nothing more important than an ant way down below her on the pavement. He swallowed, thick and painful around the treacle feeling.

The others were pinned too, lined up along the wall like statues round a crypt. The only parts of them moving were their eyes. Leon looked resigned, Lancelot worried and Gwen looked out furious, Arthur could almost see the flames spilling from her eyes as she looked at Morgana, but she didn’t open her mouth to say a word. And across from him was a young man, who must have been barely out of university, in a lab coat. He was bleeding profusely from one leg and seemed to be drifting in and out of consciousness. Arthur vaguely recognised him from just walking around the Department, but he couldn’t put a name to the face.

“You are just in time for the main event,” Morgause said. “Right on time to see Morgana take her rightful place.”

“I’ve told you, Morgause,” Gaius said, “It’s not ready to be used. It’s just a prototype, in the first stages of development.” He looked tired and old. Arthur had always thought of him as an old man, even when Arthur was just a tiny child, Gaius had seemed unthinkably ancient. But he had never thought of him as being like other old people – frail, tired and easily broken – not until now. He looked tiny. Perhaps it was because Arthur was pinned over a metre above the floor, looking down at everything, but he didn’t think so. Gaius looked like he was fraying at the edges. Was it just tonight or had it been like this since Arthur’s father… since Uther…

Arthur looked away, unable to see Gaius like that. It seemed that the last couple of days were going to force him to see everyone he knew the wrong way round.

“It’ll do what we need it for,” Morgause said.

“You think that no one’s tried to do this before?” Gaius asked. “The dragon stones have been around for thousands of years, and you honestly think that no one has tried this before.” Arthur finally noticed the stones. He had been so caught up with the people before that he hadn’t seen them, lying unobtrusively in the centre of the room. They were in a circle, evenly spaced, and in the centre of them was what looked like a blackened scorch mark. It was shaped like a twelve pointed star, each point going out to one of the stones. “To control all magic,” Gaius said, “it’s something people dream of. But you have to be strong enough.”

“Morgana is strong,” Morgause said firmly, smiling over at Morgana who smiled back happily. The expression was incongruous with the situation. It was a little girl smile, pleased at praise from an idol and it made Arthur swallow compulsively. He had to remember that she wasn’t Morgana anymore, she was the enemy. “She had enough strength to kill Uther.”

Arthur didn’t scream. He couldn’t move and he didn’t scream. He just hung there, on the wall, as silent as a bloody painting and stopped. For a moment everything in his head just stopped. Every thought, every wish, every emotion stopped dead in its tracks and Arthur hung there. Just for a moment, an everlasting, but far too quick, moment.

Then it fell in on him, bits and pieces of half-thoughts, chaos around the edges of him, blackening the edges of his sight and making his ears roar with the sound of his pulse.

He strained against the magic that held him still, but there was no fighting it. There was no fighting any of it. He jerked and pulled against the bonds until he could hardly breathe with the effort, and then he carried on. He couldn’t stand there and do nothing he couldn’t-

Leon caught his eye, watching him motionlessly but sure, and Arthur fell still again. He looked at Lancelot, who was just as still, but staring at him just as intently, and Gwen whose eyes were full of sorrow and concern, and Percival, who seemed to understand, without even knowing him, exactly what was going on.

Arthur had never put much faith in those so called wordless communications that people made, but he thought that, in that moment, he sort of understood. There weren’t volumes of information in his friends’ eyes, they weren’t telling him anything, and he couldn’t make out entire sentences behind their eyes. But there was knowledge, that he wasn’t alone.

He let his muscles relax. They ached.

While he had been fighting, Morgana and Morgause had been preparing something or other, and they had convinced Gaius, through some threats to himself and the others, no doubt, to turn the machine on again.

Morgause hugged Morgana fiercely. It seemed like they didn’t even realise that there was anyone else in the room with them.

“Take your place, sister,” Morgause said. “Become who you were born to be.”

“Her magic isn’t powerful enough,” Gaius said again, in warning. “You saw what happened to Cenred.”

Arthur looked back at the star-shaped burn mark and really wished that Gaius hadn’t said that.

“The sacrifice was part of the ritual. That was supposed to happen,” Morgause said. “Cenred was an idiot, who didn’t have a magical bone in his body.”

“The machine concentrates magic. It didn’t matter that Cenred wasn’t magical. He couldn’t have taken that much power in even if he was. It’s a matter of physics. The human body, magical or not, isn’t designed to hold power like that. It just doesn’t fit.”

“Get on with it, old man. You’re not fooling anyone,” Morgause said, snapping.

“I’m not trying to fool anyone.” Gaius argued. “It’s foolish to enter into an experiment without some idea of the risks involved, and I’m telling you that I’ve watched Morgana grow up, I know how strong her magic is, and I know she won’t be able to handle this. I’d prefer not to watch another person burn alive today.”

“You knew?” Morgana said, clearly fixating on the wrong part of Gaius’s speech. “All these years you knew and you said nothing?”

“What would I have said?” Gaius asked, sighing deeply. He looked over at Arthur apologetically, but avoided Morgana’s gaze completely. “You were Uther Pendragon’s daughter, for all intents and purposes. What could I have said?”

“Anything!” Morgana snapped. She opened her mouth as if to say more, but words failed her. “Enough. You’ll pay for your mistakes soon enough, just like Uther paid for his. Turn it on.”

As Gaius moved towards the machine, Arthur’s eyes caught a flash of movement high above them. In the steel supports in the roof, that kept the building above them from crashing down. It wasn’t much, just a flash of light colour, but it was enough to draw his attention, and once it had drawn it, he concentrated.

High up above them, up in the ceiling, there were three shapes that were probably just some pipes, or wiring. But, if you looked at them for too long, they looked like they might be three people, crouching in the rafters, looking downward.

One of the people moved.

Arthur’s attention snapped back to Morgana and Morgause, but they hadn’t looked up, they hadn’t noticed. He glanced upwards again, but his eyes couldn’t find the shapes again. He couldn’t keep himself from hoping, just a little bit, that somehow, some way, Merlin and Gwaine would find a way to get them all out of this. He didn’t know if Merlin could break a spell that had already been cast, but he hoped that he’d get them down from the wall.

Morgana took her place in the stone circle, standing on what Arthur was now painfully aware, were Cenred’s ashes. As she did so, she and Morgause began to chant. He couldn’t make out the words. They weren’t in English or any other language that he knew, or even one that he had heard before. But they seemed to strike something deep in his stomach that jumped at them. It felt a little like nausea and a little like sitting on a roller coaster at the top of a huge drop.

At first he didn’t notice it, but the stones were starting to glow, a fiery red-orange. Second after second the glow grew stronger, and for the first time he understood why they had been called dragon stones. They looked like they were alight. Morgana stood in the centre of it all, lit from below by the magical firelight. It reminded him of the strange nights they had spent camping in the bottom of the garden as children, the two of them and a torch. Morgana had loved to tell ghost stories and Arthur had tried never to seem scared. The lighting was the same now as it had been then.

Perhaps Merlin succeeded, perhaps Morgause was distracted, or maybe the stones were already leeching the magic from the world around them, because suddenly Arthur pitched forwards and fell to the ground. He heard the thuds from around him as the others did the same.

He was on his feet in seconds, but the glow was so bright by now, and a wind was picking up, making the stone circle into a vortex that he couldn’t approach. It was almost as difficult to take a step forward into the growing winds as it had been to walk with Morgause’s spell on them.

“It’s too late,” Morgause called out over the howling. “There’s nothing you can do to stop her now.” As if to reinforce what she had said, the pitch of Gaius’ machine rose another few tones, to a note that seemed to reverberate through Arthur’s skeleton. He winced. “In a few moments, it’ll all be over, and you will get the punishment you richly deserve.”

Arthur looked around for something – anything – that he could use to stop this. His gun was no good, the bullet wouldn’t have any more hope against a magical vortex than he would. But there was nothing nearby.

He stared at her, helpless, before turning to the others, hoping against hope that one of them would have an idea.

And they did.

“What we need” Gwen said, with a small smile, “is more time.”

“Time?” Leon said, reaching into his pocket. “I might be able to help with that.”

Arthur had never seen anything like it before, the vortex slowed and ground to a halt, the fierce orange faded into brown. It was like he was standing in a bubble.

“That won’t hold for long,” Lancelot said, “if they’re sucking all of the magic out of this place, then that’s going to go first.”

“All the magic except the stuff in people,” a familiar voice said from behind Arthur.

He turned in astonishment, to see Merlin standing behind him, a grin pasted to his face. Gwaine was on one side of him, peering at the world outside the bubble, and Elena was on the other, smirking at him.

“You were…” Arthur pointed upwards.

“We moved,” Elena said.

“She’s startlingly good at being quiet when she’s doing something illegal,” Gwaine said with a grin. “I’m actually a little worried. Merlin was a little less… stealthy.”

“I didn’t make a noise.”

“Only because you used magic,” Elena pointed out. “And speaking of magic, aren’t we supposed to be saving the world or something?” She looked to where the whirlwind stood, frozen in a moment.

Merlin nodded.

“Right, yes… that would be my job.”

“What do you mean?” Arthur said. “We have to get out of here, there’s nothing we can do now.” Merlin looked at him for a long moment as though he really wanted to say something – something stupid no doubt, or maybe something about feelings. “We’ll regroup. Start afresh.”

“No,” he said finally. “If this works, Morgana’s going to be the most powerful being in the known universe. It’s now or never.”

“Tell us what to do,” Lancelot said, before Arthur could get a word in edgeways. He was looking at Merlin like he really believed that Merlin could do it, could stop it. Of all of them, Lancelot had known Merlin’s magic for the longest, Arthur remembered. Perhaps he didn’t know it as well as Gwaine did now, but he had worked with him at the Department, knowing about his magic, and he thought Merlin could do this, could stop this.

“Stay back, take cover,” Merlin said. “If this doesn’t work then… well, I hope it works.” He walked to the edge of the bubble nearest to Morgause and Morgana. Arthur started after him, but a hand grasped his shoulder and held him back.

“There’s nothing you can do to help him now,” Gwaine said. He didn’t sound any happier about it than Arthur felt. “If you try to help you’ll only get in his way. You’d hurt more than you’d help.”

“I can’t just stand here,” Arthur protested. He felt useless again. His father’s murderers were within his grasp and he had to stand back and let someone else deal with them.

“That’s why I’m here to hold you back,” Gwaine said succinctly.

Merlin nodded to Leon, who undid whatever it was he had done before, and suddenly the world was starting up again and the bubble was disappearing into nothing.

Arthur tried to run forward, but Gwaine was expecting it, and held him back, and then he had no choice but to watch, all over again, as Merlin ran forwards towards Morgana.

Before he got there, though, there came an almost unearthly scream from inside the vortex. Morgana’s voice, Arthur could recognise it even as stretched and broken as it was, and she was in a lot of pain. It sounded like Cenred had sounded, right at the end, when the magic had burnt him up.

“Morgana?” Morgause called, but all she got in reply was more screaming.

“I warned you she wouldn’t be able to handle it,” Gaius said. Morgause glared at him, and strode towards the vortex, but she was thrown backwards by the force of it. Even then, Morgana didn’t stop screaming.

Then Merlin did something incredibly stupid.

Arthur was used to Merlin doing stupid things. His life while Merlin had worked for the Department had been spent trying to work out what stupid thing Merlin was doing and stop it from causing all their deaths. But he had never seen Merlin do anything quite like this.

He stepped towards the vortex, raised his hand and said, “Let me through.”

Just those words, like he was talking to an annoying toddler who was blocking a hallway. “Let me through.”

There was a pause, which was probably shorter than it felt to Arthur, whose pulse was racing, and then, like a curtain being drawn aside, a gap formed in the vortex. A gap through which Arthur could see Morgana, standing rigid. Every muscle in her body was taut, her head was thrown back, her mouth open. Tears were rolling down her cheeks and she was screeching in agony.

Then Merlin stepped through the gap, without looking back, and it closed behind him.

Not long after that, the screaming stopped, and the glow suddenly brightened all at once to clear white light, so bright that Arthur had to close his eyes and shield them in his arm.

Morgause was still screaming Morgana’s name, and she went on screaming Morgana’s name even as the light got so bright it cut through Arthur’s arm and his eyelids so that all he could see was white. She was raving and yelling at Merlin, telling him to let her sister go.

Then there was darkness.

It was so dark that Arthur thought that he must have gone blind, and so sudden that he was left reeling.

He lowered his arm and blinked, but there was nothing but black in every direction, only the sounds of people breathing and Morgause’s anger, and the firm grip of Gwaine’s arm across his chest, kept Arthur rooted in reality.

The lights flickered back into being and the first thing Arthur saw was Merlin, holding Morgana up, blood dripping from his nose. The next thing he heard was an almighty crack and everyone looked down at the stones where they sat on the floor. All of them but one, cracked right in half.

“Huh,” Elena said. “That’s a pity, I could have fenced those.” Arthur chose to ignore her, focusing more on Merlin and Morgause, who was flying at him like an avenging banshee.

But she was caught before she got to him, lifted off the ground, kicking and screaming, like she weighed nothing at all.

“She’s alive,” Merlin said, looking up at Morgause. “She’s alive, and considering what she just went through, I think that’s the best thing you can hope for.”

“What did you do to her?” Morgause asked. “What did you do?”

“I saved her life,” Merlin said, sounding a little astonished at his own actions.

“Merlin, my boy,” Gaius stepped forwards, “Are you alright?” Merlin blinked at him and grinned.

“Gaius!” he exclaimed. “It’s good to see you.”

“Yes, yes. You too,” Gaius said swiftly, “but are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Merlin said with a shrug.

“Merlin,” Gaius said, in his least impressed tone. “You’re crackling.”

Arthur hadn’t noticed it until then, but it was true, every move Merlin made seemed to be accompanied by static electricity, his fingers twitched and there were sparks between them, he turned his head and his hair did the same thing.

“Am I?” Merlin asked. “That’s weird.”

Arthur looked around, but no one seemed any more aware of what was going on than he was. Elena had walked over to where Leon was standing, and Lancelot and Gwen were wrapped up in each other, but no one looked exactly well-informed.

Merlin turned to Morgause.

“I think…” he began. “It was too much for Morgana on her own,” he said, starting again. “but it wasn’t too much for both of us.” He leant down to pick up the final stone and slipped it into his pocket. “So it’s in both of us now.”

“Both of you?” Morgause asked, she sounded horrified.

“Yes… but it’s not,” Merlin paused again, cocking his head to one side, like he was listening to something. “It’s not what you think it is. You think that the stones give someone the power over all the magic in the world. You think that they take it all and stuff it into one person. They don’t. It’s not the magic that’s transferred… it’s the knowledge.”

“The texts said power.”

“Knowledge is power,” Gwaine muttered in Arthur’s ear. It was almost enough to make him laugh. Merlin just shrugged.

Morgana groaned, her head lolling slightly and the entire room hushed as she opened her eyes and her mouth.

“The dancing’s over,” she said slowly. “Did I end up with the wrong partner?”

Morgause stared at her sister, her mouth open. Morgana looked back, her face blank and confused.

“What did you do to her?” Morgause asked Merlin. She wasn’t loud anymore, but quiet and hollow.

“Her brain couldn’t take it,” Merlin said a little sorrowfully. “She can’t fix on what’s here and what’s everywhere. It is a little confusing.”

“But you’re somehow fine?” Morgause asked.

“I wasn’t in there as long,” Merlin said. He spoke slowly, like he was trying out the words, testing the idea as he said it. “Morgana was in there for ages, all by herself. She lost touch with herself.”

“Morgause,” Morgana said suddenly.

“Yes?”

“Which you are you?” Morgana asked. “I’ve seen so many. You were in the fire, a million of you. And you were burning.”

“I’m the real me,” Morgause said slowly.

“You’re all real,” Morgana told her. “Every one of you. I see you… all of you.”

Morgause stared at her, horrified, her face crumpling. Arthur knew exactly how she felt in that moment, he could see the despair burying her, but he didn’t feel sympathy, or pity. He felt glad.

Then Morgause raised her hand to point a finger at Merlin and she began chanting again, despair turning into rage.

Arthur didn’t even think about it, a gun was already in his hand before he had time to think about it. Merlin looked dead on his feet and knowledge or no knowledge he wouldn’t be able to stop a curse right now, even if someone gave him a mirror and body armour.

His wasn’t the only gun fired, Morgause fell with more than three bullet holes in her. Morgana watched her fall with as much emotion as someone watching dominoes topple. She looked at Arthur and smiled. It wasn’t the smirk that she’d turned on after he walked through the door and it wasn’t the rare smile of true happiness that she had always tried to conceal growing up. It was loose, open and blank.

“Did you know that you’re gold and red around the edges?” she asked.

Then Merlin collapsed face first onto the concrete floor and she went following after.

*

Epilogue

Merlin didn’t like hospitals. He didn’t like the way they smelt, or the way they felt. Even the magic in them was wrong. It had a sickly sweet edge to it and it made his flesh crawl.

It didn’t help that he knew more than the doctors did. He knew more than them about practically everything now. He knew their lives, their dreams. He knew who was going to die and who would live. He knew who was going to walk through the door before they even knew they were going to his room. And he knew more about magic and the magical than he had ever thought could be fitted inside one skull.

He amused himself when the nurses weren’t there by doing silly little tricks, tapping into time and rewinding, fast-forwarding, looking across time to see how it folded around people.

The things that he hadn’t been able to handle before, came easily now, too easily. There wasn’t even a challenge to him. He knew how to bend the world around him. He sort of wished that he had ended up like Morgana in a way. She seemed happy enough, though it was difficult to get a straight answer out of her.

She was disconnected from the world completely, and she couldn’t use what she knew. But Merlin could. He could see how to use it for good and for – not so good purposes. He could see how he could make the world a better place for everyone. But he could see where that would lead him.

He knew more than anyone alive had ever known – apart from Morgana – but he knew enough to know that he couldn’t use that knowledge. But even that was using the knowledge.

He could also see the Arthur was walking down the corridor towards his room, so he set his conundrum aside for a moment and went back to just staring at the ceiling.

Arthur had brought books. Merlin could see them, he knew what was in them, all of it every word. But he knew that he’d read them anyway, because Arthur had brought them. He knew that Arthur had brought books because books were neutral and Arthur didn’t want to assume. He knew that Arthur was thinking about how to apologise.

He knew what would happen when Arthur apologised. And he knew what would happen after that. He knew too much.

So he switched it off, turned off the part of himself that was looking into the future, the part of him that couldn’t help but look into people’s brains. He opened a door somewhere at the back of his mind and shoved it into himself so that it would only come out of he needed it. He knew how to do that as well.

And then he didn’t.

Merlin blinked at the ceiling and tried to remember what had happened in the past few days. He was in the Department’s hospital, he could tell that, but what was he doing there. He remembered Morgana and Morgause, and the circle.

They must have succeeded because he was alive and he was here in bed. So they must have succeeded.

The door to his room swung open and he turned around, expecting a doctor. He wasn’t expecting to see Arthur, a pile of books tucked under his arm. Merlin grinned.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” Arthur asked. “Uh… Gwaine wanted me to ask you what enlightenment was like.”

“Enlightenment?” Merlin asked, confused. “What do you mean?”

Arthur opened his mouth to speak, but he shut it again after a pause, sort of smiling and sort of frowning. It was an odd expression. But then, Arthur was an odd person.

“Never mind,” Arthur said. “I brought you some books, in case you got bored.”

“Thanks,” Merlin said, feeling a little disconnected. “So I take it we won, then.”

“Yeah, we won…” Arthur said. He looked away from Merlin’s face, avoiding eye contact in the way he always did when he was uncomfortable, his eyes flicking around the room. “And I have something I need to say to you.” Merlin waited.

“It’s not enough,” Arthur said. “I don’t think there’s anything I can say that would be enough. But… I’m sorry.”

Merlin blinked. He hadn’t been expecting that.

“I’m sorry,” Arthur repeated. “For… well…”

“It’s all right,” Merlin said, smiling again and reaching out for the books. Arthur handed them over. “I can probably forgive you, if you keep bringing me books.”

“I’ll remember that.” Arthur paused, fidgeting a little from foot to foot. Merlin watched him, still smiling. It was always amusing to see Arthur this uncomfortable. “Anyway, you’re not a fugitive anymore, nor am I… or Gwaine. So I… I called your mother. She’s coming down to see you.”

“You called my Mum?” Merlin asked. He smiled so much that he felt as though his cheeks were splitting. “Really?”

“Yes, really,” Arthur said. “Though you might want to do something with your hair, it’s a mess.”

“Hey!” Merlin protested. “I just saved the world. I can have messy hair if I want to have messy hair.”

“I thought you didn’t remember that,” Arthur said, smirking.

“Well, it must have been me. You couldn’t have done it without me,” Merlin said.

“No,” Arthur said, shocking Merlin yet again. “No we couldn’t.”

-

-

-

Thank you for reading this far :)

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PaperLegends: Tinker, Tailor, Wizard, Spy, Part 6, (R)

definewisdom — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 22:03:57 GMT

part 5

-

The knock at the door was unexpected and it startled Leon, not that he had been doing anything to be interrupted. Since he had ended the conversation with Lancelot on the phone all Leon had managed to do was pace from one room to the next. He had turned the TV on and then off again, unable to summon the concentration to watch the rubbish that was on. His brain was buzzing, going round and round in circles, his conversation with Aredian repeating until he wasn't sure what was actual memory and what was wishful thinking.I should have said this, he thought, rewriting his own part until it was a muddled confusion.

There had been nothing he could have done, Leon told himself firmly, standing up from the kitchen table and stalking out of the room again, leaving a half brewed pot off coffee behind him. He couldn't have said or done anything that would have kept him his job. He had done the best he could with the information he had and-

Then the knock interrupted his thoughts and he jumped a little, turning in alarm.

His mind went to the worst place first, a vague idea of some faceless person coming for him, but then he reminded himself that they had already got him out of the way, why would they send someone after him now? He was hardly a threat.

He opened the door, half expecting one of Aredian’s guards to be standing there with a warrant for his arrest, but it was a man with a collection tin instead. He was taller than Leon himself and built like a Rugby player. He held out the collecting tin with a hint of a smile.

“Support your local hospital,” the stranger said. His mouth twisted a little, like he was amused and Leon knew there was something strange going on. The box looked authentic, though, and none of the surveillance team on the street seemed to be paying him any mind.

"Sure," Leon said, reaching into his pocket for some spare change. “Do you just do this street or…?”

“Next one down, too," the man said. Leon's coins clinked into the bottom of the tin and the man produced a leaflet from his pocket. "Here," he said, handing it over. "See where your money’s going.”

Leon nodded and watched the man walk back down his front path and on to the next house. He continued watching as he knocked at Mrs Edgecombe’s door and gave his rather sparse sales pitch.

Leon caught the eye of one of the men in the car across the street and hurriedly walked inside again, shutting the door behind him. He was jumping at shadows. Staring after the poor man like he was going to come back and break the door down. If he wasn’t careful some innocent charity collector would be dragged off to Aredian’s desk and interrogated.

He flipped the leaflet open, looking for something, anything to do, and started as he saw a post-it note stuck on the inside.

‘Round the back, three minutes. Bring anything you can't do without.’

He was careful not to react as he pocketed the note and dropped the leaflet onto the top of his junk mail pile. Then he gathered together a few things and headed for kitchen, where the back door was.

It was strange to simulate the motions of making a cup of coffee. He forgot which order it was supposed to be done in twice, too busy thinking of making it look realistic to remember what realistic was.

Minutes seemed longer somehow, now that he was waiting for something to happen, they stretched on and on. He knew that he was checking the wall clock too often to look casual about it, knew that he was making the worst cup of coffee in history (it would help if he remembered the coffee) but the restlessness that had settled over him suddenly had a purpose to it.

When the clock ticked to the right time, he set the coffee mug down and strolled to the back door as normally as he could. Opening it up and walking down the tiny yard and to the back gate. He hadn't even reached it when it swung open and he saw Lancelot standing there, looking a bit anxious.

“We weren’t sure you’d find the note in time,” Lance said, turning back to the car.

“We’re not being watched?” Leon asked, looking around, but he couldn’t see anyone suspicious looking at all. There was just Lance’s car sitting in the back road behind the houses.

“We're okay for now," Lance said, opening the driver's side door. “But we’ve only got a minute or so before they’re back. Get in.” Leon didn’t even question the order and they were driving away within seconds.

“How much do you know?" Lancelot asked, when they were two blocks away, though his eyes were flicking nervously to the rear view mirror every few seconds.

“Uther's dead," Leon started. "Arthur's been framed and someone's trying to stop the Department from doing anything about it."

“Do you know where Arthur is?” Lancelot asked.

“No,” Leon said honestly. Lancelot swore. It was the first time Leon had ever heard him curse. What he remembered of Lance was a man who was unfailingly polite, even in the face of prejudice and verbal abuse. He thought frantically for a second, staring out of the window at the shops they were passing. Lancelot had left a year after what had happened with Merlin, unable to continue working in the Department when he saw no honour in the way they worked. He had been almost painfully earnest in his last few days of work, trying to explain to Leon why he felt the need to leave, and Leon had understood, and so had Arthur.

“I know who he's with, though."

Lancelot turned to look at him, forgetting the rear view mirror for a minute and staring at him as though that comment is some kind of code. Leon ignored him, continuing to look out of the window, uncomfortable. He felt like he was betraying a confidence, though he hadn’t said anything incriminating.

“Could you get in touch with him again?” Lance asked.

“Maybe.”

“Good,” Lance said turning back to the road completely again, some of the tension falling from his shoulders. “We’re going to need his help.”

When Lancelot led Leon down the darkened stairway, Leon didn’t know what he was expecting. He might have had some half formed images, taken from a life watching the wrong sort of films. A strange conglomerate of The Matrix and Terminator.

The door swung open, though, and suddenly everything was light. A neat, cleanly decorated room, a large glass topped table in the centre of the room, and leather-looking chairs surrounding it. It almost looked like something out of a magazine.

“Sorry about the mess,” Lance said, as though that was really the most important thing when Leon had just slipped the watch of government agents and they seemed to be fighting some sort of conspiracy. “We’ve been a little busy in the past few days.”

There wasn’t any mess, not really. The place had a few books out of place, and some papers (which looked strangely like the blueprints for the Department HQ) on the table, being pored over by a young woman with blonde hair, half of which seemed to be falling out of a messy bun, falling around her face. She glanced up as Leon entered, offering him a wide eyed smile. She looked familiar, like an actor on the TV whose name you never caught, but who seemed to be in everything.

“Hello,” she said cheerily. “You must be Leon.”

“Uh… yes. And you are?” Leon asked, already sort of regretting the question.

“Elena,” she said with the exact same chipper tone of voice. “Lovely to meet you.” She offered a hand, which Leon took, a little bemused, and when he shook it, he winced as she gripped it a little too hard and pumped it up and down enthusiastically.

“Lance?” he asked, rubbing his hand.

“We think someone’s trying to take over the world,” Lance said, with a sympathetic smile. “It’s… complicated.

“It’s not that complicated,” Elena said, rolling her eyes. “There’s this collection of things, and if a magic user can get them all together they get some sort of power boost, or something, meaning that they become pretty much the most powerful person in the universe, and someone’s going after them. Only we don’t know who, and we don’t know how many they’ve got. Simple really.” She smiled again and went back to the blueprints. “We know they got one from Uther before they killed him, or after they killed him. And there’s one in the Department too. We just don’t know how they’re going to get it out. I’ve been looking for faults in the security, but I can’t see any. You know, you guys really worked hard at making this impenetrable.”

“Elena’s a…” Lance paused. “She’s good with things like this.”

“What he means to say,” Elena provided, stretching her arms over her head. One of them caught on the light shade, catching her sleeve in it so she had to try and shake it out. Leon waited patiently as she shook it and then remembered that she had been in the middle of a sentence. “What Lance means to say is that I’m a thief. Not that Daddy approves.”

“You’ve probably seen her father,” Lance provided. Leon thought about it for a moment, trying to put Elena’s face in context. He had seen her before, but where. She had looked less rumpled then, more-- the answer struck.

“The former prime minister?” Leon asked, eyes widening.

“Yes, that’s him.” Elena agreed. “Very useful. People don’t mind letting me into most places. Means I can case places without it ever seeming strange.” She nodded again. “But, as I was saying, I just can’t see a decent way to steal from the Department vaults. I could probably get in, but getting out would be a nightmare. Admittedly, they will have magic on their side, but you’ve thought of that as well.” She shrugged before sagging back into a seat in a highly unladylike manner.

“That is the idea of a vault,” Leon pointed out.

“Well, obviously,” she said, before leaning forward to look at the plans again. “It’s just so irritating. Usually I’m good at this.”

Leon decided that the best thing for his sanity would probably be to leave her to it, so he did, following Lance into a seat on the other end of the table.

“Our real problem is that we don’t know who we’re looking for,” Lance said. “Elena brought us the information, sort of. Someone asked her to steal something, but she knew something was up. She remembered me from when we had that scare at Downing Street, though God knows how she found me. I’ve found that it’s better not to ask. They contacted her anonymously. Apparently that’s the way these things are done. So that’s no good

“We’ve managed to find three thefts so far, where one of the items stolen matches what we’re looking for, but no one’s even got a description of the thieves. I thought, after Uther’s death, that we might be able to work with you but…” Lance sighed again scowling at the table top. “I don’t like to ask Gwen, now. If they’ve already got rid of you without us even communicating, then putting her in that position. It would be dangerous.”

Leon didn’t know what to say to that, he shoved a hand into his pocket, wrapping it around the small plastic cuboid he found.

What was that? He wondered, trying to identify it by touch alone. He couldn’t remember having put anything in his pockets that day. Only Gwen had…

He sat up straight as he remembered. The talk with Aredian and his subsequent suspension had pushed everything out of his mind. But, before he had gone in there, there had been a conversation with Gwen, and she had given him something.

“You want information about the night Uther was killed,” he said, looking at Lance. A smile spread across his face, and he couldn’t quite hold it back.

“You have some?” Lance straightened up again, and even Elena glanced up with an inquisitive expression.

“How would the CCTV footage from that night be?” he asked. “I had Gwen get it for me before everything happened.” Leon pulled the flash drive from his pocket and held it up over the table, flipping it around and around between his thumb and forefinger. Lance looked at it in astonishment, honest joy spreading across his face.

“I’ll get my laptop,” he said, hurrying out of the room so fast that he almost tripped over his own feet.

Elena beamed at him and Leon felt himself smile back, trying to forget that she was a thief and a stranger.

The footage wasn’t exactly good.

“Magical interference,” Lance said, huffing out a deep breath in disappointment. All they could make out really were blurry grey figures crossing the screen. They didn’t seem to be trying to hide. “Of course, they’d know about the cameras.”

Every frame seemed to be the same, watching the three of them go up and into Uther’s suite. The three of them watched the door open and Uther turn in astonishment, mouth half open to call for his guards. Then there was a brief flicker where the picture cleared up for barely a moment before everything went dark.

“Go back,” Leon said, leaning forward. Lance was already doing so, even as the words left Leon’s mouth, going back frame by frame, or as closely as he could.

Darkness, darkness, and then, one single shot in clear colour, barely noticeable when the video played properly.

“They must have had to drop the spell to blur the image, to cast the one to take the cameras out,” Lance said, but Leon was barely listening. Of the three people besides Uther in the room, two of them were turned away from the camera, just dark heads of hair and anonymous looking back. But one of the figures was caught turning away from the camera, her face captured.

“Morgause,” Leon said. His heart began to pound. “That’s Morgause.”

“Who?” Elena asked.

“The new temporary head of the department,” Leon explained. “That’s her.”

“You mean they have someone on the inside?” Elena stared, her mouth hanging open a little. She gaped for a long moment before her shoulders sagged in utter defeat and her face became devastated. “That changes everything! She could take it any time. She could have already taken it.”

“Clearance would take a while to go through,” Leon said, a little optimistically. Then he remembered something. “Shit. She’s getting them to declare a state of emergency. She’ll have access to everything, the vaults, the research department, the detention centre. Everything. That’s what this morning was about. She didn’t even care about killing people, she just wanted to make it seem like we were under attack.”

“We took too long,” Lance said. Leon could tell from the clench of his jaw that he was cursing internally, but he kept it inside and nodded. “We’ve lost that one.”

“Not necessarily,” Elena told him. “If she’s working there then she might not have had a chance to take it out of the building yet. It’s probably still on her, or in her office.”

“But we can’t get in there to check,” Lance said.

“Gwen could,” Leon said, hating himself even as he said the words. Lance turned to him angrily, losing some of that iron control and optimism.

“We can’t ask that of her!” he snapped. “It’s too dangerous. If Morgause found her then… after what she did to Uther.”

“We don’t know that was her, there were two other people with her,” Elena provided helpfully. Lance glared at her as well.

“No.”

“I’d be happy to do it myself,” Elena said with a shrug. “But someone’s bound to notice me if I go poking around the head of department’s office. Gwen’s already on the inside. She’s got a reason to be there. There have got to be files in there that Morgause doesn’t know about. She’d just have to pretend to…”

“This isn’t up for discussion-” Lance said.

“She’d say yes,” Leon said, because someone had to. “If it would help, she’d say yes.”

“We could ask Elyan,” Lance suggested. “He’s just as likely to be-“

“No he isn’t,” Leon said. “You know as well as I do, we only go into offices when we’re called in. If he’s found in there on his own, then there’ll be questions.”

“And there won’t be with Gwen?”

“Not as many,” Elena said. “I’ve pretended to be in admin loads of times. No one really notices you if you’re looking through filing cabinets… or computers. It’s easy.”

“I’m not going to put her into that sort of danger,” Lance said. “This is all based on a guess anyway.”

“I know you’re trying to protect her,” Elena said, sounding oddly thoughtful, “but I don’t think I’d like to find out later that there was something I could have done to stop something terrible from happening, and someone stopped me from being able to do it just because they wanted to protect me.”

Lance stared at her for a long moment and Leon just waited. He had always known that there had been something between Gwen and Lance, way back from the first time Lancelot had come into the Department, earnest and far too kindly spoken for an agent, really. And apparently they had kept in touch after Lance had left the Department. It wasn’t that surprising, not really. Lance hadn’t left under a cloud of betrayal and outrage, like Merlin and Gwaine. He had resigned quite officially, and left through the front door with his head held high.

Though he did associate with thieves these days, apparently.

“Fine,” Lance said, deflating. “I’ll ask her.”

The three of them froze as they heard steps on the stairs outside. Leon reached for a gun he no longer had. Elena’s hand went inside her jacket, and Leon saw a flash of metal that was most likely a knife.

Lance just stood up, but Leon could tell from his stance that he was ready to grab anything at hand if necessary.

There was a heavy, banging knock on the door, that made the table rattle a little and Elena sighed with relief as the tension left Lance’s shoulders.

“It’s Percival,” she said by way of explanation. “He always knocks like that. He doesn’t really know that he’s doing it.”

“Percival?” Leon asked, watching as Lance went to slide the door bolts back.

“The charity collector,” Lance said with a quirk of a smile.

“Right,” Leon said with a nod, just as the door swung open again and, just as Lance had said, the charity collector from earlier walked in.

“Sorry,” Percival said, “They watched me go down another two streets after that. And then they seemed to realise that he’d gone, so they stopped.”

“They didn’t realise you had anything to do with it?” Leon asked, a little concerned.

“No.” Percival said. He didn’t elaborate further.

*

Leon watched Lance make the call to Gwen, feeling guilty even as he did so. He knew the moment that she picked up. He could hear the faint sound of her voice from the receiver.

Lance set it all out clearly, emphasising the danger and that it wasn’t one hundred percent necessary that Gwen do this. She said yes, as Leon had known she would, and then she said yes again when Lance asked if she was sure and yes again when he asked her again. By the time Lance hung up, Gwen, even muffled and tinny, sounded more irritated at him than worried about risking life and limb.

He didn’t say anything after Lance put the phone down. He didn’t really think there was anything he could say.

Perhaps Arthur would have been able to say something and make it not sound like a useless platitude. Perhaps Merlin would have been able to say something optimistic and make it sound like it might come true. Gwaine would have said something hideously inappropriate and somehow made it sound utterly acceptable.

Leon just nodded and watched as Lance nodded back, looking closer to broken than Leon had ever seen him.

Then Elena dropped a coffee mug onto the table and the shattering sound made them all jump worse than if it had been a gunshot.

*

No one noticed Gwen these days, especially not when things were this busy. Uther dead and a state of emergency declared meant that everyone was very busy – or trying to look very busy. They said ‘hi’ but no one looked at her twice. She was just a part of the furniture, moving around the offices, picking up files. She wasn’t even sure that most of the people who worked in the Department knew what her job was. They accepted her wherever she went because they assumed that was where she was supposed to be. She’d never been more thankful for her strange invisibility.

Uther’s office – Morgause’s office now, she supposed – was in the centre of the building, through the maze of rooms and offices that housed the rest of the Department. She’d been there thousands of times before, to pick things up, drop things off and sit in meetings. Uther had always kept it startlingly crisp and clean, with no personal touches. Most of the others in the building had photographs on their desk, or something to make it seem like home, but Uther simply had his papers, his computer and his stationery. There was a bookcase covering the back wall, but the only books on it were texts on magic and legend.

She drew a deep breath and opened the door, trying to look as though she was supposed to be there.

Morgause hadn’t had time to change much around. It still looked like Gwen remembered it, though a little rougher around the edges. Some of the books had obviously been taken out and put back again – they were no longer in strictly regimented lines, but a little uneven – and there was a curious statue on the desk, like a woman with her hands raised up to the sky. It had no features or detail to it, but something about it unsettled Gwen.

It felt as though the thing was watching her, although it had no eyes, and the posture. Gwen was certain that if it had been given a mouth, it would have been screaming.

She shook off the feeling and headed over to the desk, walking around it cautiously. She had never been on this side of it before. Uther had always had his office clearly delineated. He was on this side, you were on the other.

It felt intrusive, walking into his side, more intrusive than opening the door and coming in. Even if Morgause had already been sitting in his chair and reading through his books, it felt wrong for Gwen to do the same thing.

She frowned at the chair for a second, before electing to kneel instead, going straight for the drawers. The bottom one was still filled with files, nothing unusual, the second one was stationery, and the top drawer… Gwen tugged at it, but it didn’t budge. Locked. She frowned momentarily, before standing up and grabbing a paperclip from the desk-tidy. The lock wasn’t exactly complicated, and she had always wanted to try this.

It took longer than she had anticipated, longer than it ever seemed to take in films, and every second that the clock on the wall ticked out made her feel that little bit more desperate, and every footstep outside made her freeze and wait, breathless.

But, probably more through luck than anything else, the lock finally clicked into place and she was able to pull the drawer open. Gwen drew it out and looked at what she found in confusion.

The stone she was looking for wasn’t there, instead there were what looked like technical diagrams, annotated in Gaius’ almost illegible handwriting. She looked at them for a long moment, but she couldn’t make out a word of what they said, or what they showed. She felt around into every corner of the drawer carefully, but there was nothing there.

She shut the drawer, and began to look around the rest of the room. She crossed to the filing cabinet, but the drawers opened easily and there was nothing in there but files. She was running out of places to look, and time was ticking past. She needed to get out of here.

She stood up.

“Looking for something?” a voice asked from behind her.

Gwen froze, not quite trusting herself to turn around. She couldn’t afford to look guilty.

“The Framwell file, from last week,” she said, hoping that her voice wasn’t shaking as much as she thought it was.

“And you needed it so badly that you came into my office without permission?” Morgause asked.

“I’m sorry, Ms Treherne. Mr Pendragon never minded if I came in here to get files.”

“I’m not Mr Pendragon,” Morgause said. “And I don’t appreciate people spying on me.”

“I’m not spying on you,” Gwen said quickly. “I was just looking for a file. I knew that you were busy, and I… didn’t want to bother you.” She finally gathered up the courage to turn around. Morgause looked like a different person from the cool, pleasant person who had introduced herself to the employees earlier. Her eyes were hard and cold. Gwen smiled as calmly as she could, but there was something about that glare that seemed to cut right through her.

“Have you found it?” Morgause asked. Gwen opened the second drawer of the cabinet and made a show of getting the right file.

“Right here,” Gwen said. “I’ll be going then, shall I?” she asked.

“That might be a good idea,” Morgause said, her voice as ice cold as her eyes. “And next time, ask.”

“Yes, Ms Treherne,” Gwen said before hurrying out of the door, struggling to keep her breath under control and her legs from shaking too badly for her to walk.

She closed the door behind her and walked as quickly as she could back to her own desk. The whole way she felt the prickle of being watched on the back of her neck

When she got to her desk one of the lights on her phone was blinking. She glanced at it out of habit rather than curiosity. The name next to the light was Uther. His office phone.

Gwen paused half way to sitting down. She remembered Lance’s voice on the other end of the phone, sounding so earnest. Morgause had killed Uther, she had killed him and then she had taken his job, and she was trying to do something worse than that.

Gwen sat down properly and picked up the phone, hitting the button that would connect her to that conversation.

“And you’re sure it’s them?” Morgause’s voice asked.

“Positive.” Gwen froze. She knew that voice. But… it couldn’t be. Perhaps this was an innocent conversation. Perhaps- her thoughts were cut off by what came next. “I recognise Merlin’s magic from when he left. He isn’t even trying to hide it. Arthur will be with him and they’ll have the final stone.”

Gwen gasped out loud, her voice making a noise that her brain couldn’t form into words.

Morgana.

“What was that?” Morgana asked. Gwen clasped a hand over her mouth, trying to stop even breathing.

“What was what?” Morgause asked.

“I thought I heard something.”

“Probably interference on the line,” Morgause answered.

Gwen could hear her heart thudding in her chest, she wondered if Morgana would hear that as well.

“Take the thralls,” Morgause said, “get the stone. Kill anyone who tries to stop you, even if it’s Pendragon or his little warlock. Not that I imagine you’ll have a problem doing that.”

“No, it’ll be my pleasure,” Morgana said. Gwen wanted to make another noise again, she could feel it, rising like a bubble up her throat.

“Call me when you have it,” Morgause said. “Good luck, sister.”

Sister? Gwen thought dazed. She was so thrown that she didn’t even hear Morgana hang up, but she was suddenly aware that it was just her and Morgause on the line.

“Morgana?” Morgause asked. “Are you still there?”

Gwen put the receiver down as quietly as possible, then took a deep breath. She had to find a way to tell Lancelot, and a way to warn Arthur and Merlin.

*

The phone call came back an hour later, and Lance leapt for the receiver before it had completed a single ring.

Leon watched Lancelot’s face as he listened to Gwen’s report.

“It wasn’t there?” Lancelot asked. Leon let his head thud back onto the seat. He could see Percival, opposite him frowning just as much. Elena sagged forward and sighed deeply, her breath sending the flyaway tendrils of her hair up in small waves.

“What? You shouldn’t have done that, it’s too much of a… What? You’re sure?

“But she’s – right, I understand. I’ll tell Leon, he might be able to contact them. Do you think she suspects you?

“Get out of there. Get Elyan and get out of there.

“I love you, too. I’ll see you tonight.” He pulled the phone away from his ear and hung up, taking a moment to compose himself before turning to the three people who were trying very hard to look like they hadn’t been listening to that last bit. At least, Leon was trying that, the other two didn’t seem to care much.

“She couldn’t find the stone, but I suppose you heard that bit,” Lancelot said. They nodded. “But she overheard a conversation between Morgause and one of her accomplices.” He hesitated and Leon waited as patiently as he could, leaning forwards in his seat. “It was… It was Morgana.”

“Morgana?” Leon asked. Of all the things he had been expecting to hear, it hadn’t been that. “You’re sure. It was Morgana.”

“Morgause called her by name,” Lancelot said. He sounded a little shell-shocked himself. Both Elena and Percival were looking between them with confusion.

“Who’s Morgana?” Elena asked.

“Uther’s adopted daughter, she sort of works for the Department,” Leon said. “She grew up with Arthur.” He turned to Lancelot again. “But the Interim head of the Department might have an entirely innocent reason for calling Morgana.”

“The conversation Gwen overheard wasn’t innocent,” Lancelot said. “You said earlier that you might be able to contact Arthur. Were you telling the truth?”

“I think I can, why?”

“Because you need to warn him that Morgana’s coming to take the stone. And she’s going to kill him, Merlin and anyone else who gets in her way.”

*

A phone began to ring.

“Merlin, get that, would you?” Arthur said, trying to find a way to lie on the bed that didn’t make his injuries burn.

“It’s your phone,” Merlin said sleepily. “You get it.”

“It’s not my phone,” Arthur said with a frown, “you fried my phone, for my own good, remember.” There was a satisfied chuckle from Gwaine where he lay on the sofa. “Shut up.”

“If it’s not your phone, why’s it coming from your trousers?” Merlin asked.

“It’s not…” Arthur paused, patting his trouser pocket. “It is coming from my trousers.”

“Told you,” Merlin replied.

Arthur pulled the phone out of his trousers, confused. It wasn’t his, then whose was it? He dangled it above his face for a moment, trying to focus.

As soon as he saw it, he sat bolt upright. He looked over at Gwaine, who was staring at him with just as much amazement.

“That’s Freya’s,” Gwaine said. “Who’s calling?” Arthur looked down at the display. He didn’t recognise the number, so he shrugged. “Do you think we should answer it? It might be… them.”

“If it is, then I can convince them to try and get the stone,” Arthur said with a pause. “We can lead them into a trap.”

“Or you could tell them how to find us, so they could kill us all,” Gwaine pointed out.

“It could be Freya,” Merlin said. “She might have got away.” Neither Arthur nor Gwaine answered that, Arthur didn’t even dare look away from the phone, in case he said something.

“We’ve got to answer it,” Arthur said, after a moment. “It’s all we can do.”

“Wai-” Merlin said, but Arthur was already answering, lifting the phone to his ear.

“Hello?” he said.

“Arthur?” Leon’s voice asked.

“Leon!” Arthur breathed a sigh of relief, but in the pit of his stomach, he felt a stab of disappointment. “Are you all right? What’s happening? What happened with the address I gave you?”

“We don’t have time for that. Arthur… I’m sorry, I really am. It’s Morgana.” Leon sounded shaky, though Arthur couldn’t imagine anything ever shaking the man.

“What about Morgana? Has something happened to her? Leon?” he asked. He saw Merlin staring at him, looking almost guilty.

“It was her, and Morgause, and some other guy we don’t know.” Arthur replayed the sentence in his head, but he still couldn’t make out any more than before.

“What was her?” Arthur asked.

“Your father, Arthur, Morgana was one of the people who killed your father.”

Arthur needed to sit down. He might have said that out loud, because Merlin was telling him that he was sitting down, like it was something really obvious, when clearly it wasn’t.

“She can’t have been…” Arthur said.

“Arthur, we’re sure about this,” Leon said. And Arthur could place his tone now. Apologetic. That was it.

“You’re wrong.”

“We’re not wrong, Arthur. Gwen heard Morgause talking to her.” Leon said.

“Who’s Morgause?” Arthur demanded. He caught sight of Merlin’s face turning deathly pale. “Leon… it can’t have been her. I was there, I would remember… if it was Morgana I would remember. I would remember.”

“Arthur, there’s no time,” Leon said. “She’s coming for the stone, and for you. She’s going to kill you. You have to get out of there. You and Merlin. Where are you? We’ll come and pick you up.”

“Who’s we?” Arthur asked.

“Lancelot, and some others. Just tell me where you are.” Arthur gave their location, feeling numb. “Good, we’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Turn right out of the hotel, we’ll meet you along that road somewhere.”

Whatever else Leon had to say was cut off as the fire alarm went off, and suddenly every other sound was drowned out. Arthur didn’t bother to say goodbye, he just hit the button to end the call and turned to Merlin, who was standing up.

“Who’s Morgause?” he asked. Merlin frowned at him.

“Just someone I met once. We need to go, Arthur. This fire alarm isn’t a coincidence. It’s designed to get everyone out of the building. Someone’s trying to smoke us out.”

“Guys,” Gwaine said. But Arthur didn’t look at him, and Merlin was too busy staring back at Arthur.

“Tell me who she is, Merlin!” Arthur demanded.

“She’s Morgana’s sister, her half sister.” Merlin admitted reluctantly.

“And she’s a witch?”

“Yes.”

“Powerful?”

“Yes, they both are.”

“Guys,” Gwaine said again, ignored once more.

“And she’s not on our list because?” Arthur demanded. Had Merlin been protecting her?

“Because I didn’t think she had that much against your father,” Merlin said. “When I met her she was angry, but she wasn’t trying to kill anyone. She just wanted…”

“Arthur! Merlin!”

“What, Merlin? What did she want?” Arthur demanded.

“Power, she wanted power… and Morgana.”

“Another thing you kept from me for my own good?” Arthur asked. Merlin frowned, but nodded. “And what about Morgana?”

“Seriously. You two!”

“She’s a witch. But I didn’t know she was capable of this, I swear to you Arthur. She’d barely realised she had magic when I left. I thought that it would be all right. I thought she’d cope.”

“You think that Leon’s right, don’t you?” Arthur said. “You think she was there when my father died.”

“I think…” Merlin said. “I think she might have been the one who did it.”

“Clever, Merlin,” a new voice said. Arthur and Merlin turned to see Morgana standing in the doorway, smiling serenely. Arthur caught her gaze for a second and had to look away. That wasn’t his sister. There was something broken there. “I always liked you.”

Arthur looked at Gwaine, who was standing held at gun point by three of the same sort of men as earlier, with the same glazed expressions.

“I was trying to say, there were footsteps, in the corridor… heading away from the fire escape.” Gwaine said. “I think it might be someone trying to kill us.” Arthur stared.

“I liked you too,” Merlin said softly. “But I think I’m over that now.”

“Ah, an attempt at bravado,” Morgana said. “Almost sweet.” She looked around the room and her eyes fell on the bedside table where the stone lay. Arthur followed her gaze and lunged for it, but before he could get half the way a thrall stepped in front of him and threw him back into the wall. He watched as Morgana walked over to it and picked it up. “Sorry, but I think that belongs to me.”

“It belongs to Freya,” Merlin said. Morgana raised an eyebrow.

“The Bastet?” Morgana asked. “It used to belong to her, when she was alive. Now it’s finder’s keepers.”

Arthur didn’t think he had ever seen Merlin look angrier than at that moment. His eyes glowed gold, but Morgana just looked at him.

“Magic doesn’t work on the stones,” she said, “it can’t affect them at all. So you can’t snatch it out of my hands. And before you try to be clever and hit me instead, I suggest you look at your friends. If anything happens to me the thralls will shoot and they will die.”

“You’re going to kill us anyway,” Gwaine said. “We all know that.”

“Oh yes,” Morgana agreed. “It’s nice that you understand that. Uther didn’t get it until the very end. He still thought that I was too naïve to do it. He thought he could talk me out of it. He’d spent all my life telling me how evil I was and torturing my kind, and then he expected me to have mercy. He expected mercy.”

“Well, I definitely don’t expect that,” Gwaine said. Morgana looked at him.

“What do you expect?” she asked.

“Well, I always wanted to go out with a bang,” Gwaine said, hefting his bag on his shoulder.

*

Arthur had forgotten that Gwaine did this.

No, that wasn’t right.

Arthur had remembered that Gwaine did this. He had remembered it as an anecdote no one ever talked about, an amusing list of stories that he could have brought up down the pub, if there had ever been anyone down the pub other than him and the alcohol (and Leon, but Leon only ever turned up when the alcohol was too sunk in for Arthur to remember how to tell stories at all). He didn't remember how it felt to live through Gwaine doing this.

His back was so hot, almost scorching, and the only reason he hadn't stop dropped and rolled to put out the fire that must have caught hold of his jacket (Gwaine's jacket really, which was just as well, because if Gwaine's fondness for fireworks had ruined any of Arthur's clothes he might have had to kill the man) was because his desire to die in a fire slightly exceeded his desire to be crushed to death by falling masonry or to fall into the hands of the people (Morgana, his mind provided, repeating it over and over again to hammer it home) who were coming after them.

Somewhere on his right, Gwaine was running just as fast. He started to pull ahead and Arthur sped up accordingly. Damned if he was going to die being shown up by bloody Gwaine.

To his left, Merlin was yelling something that couldn’t be heard over the roar of the explosion and the fire, still ringing in his ears. He couldn’t look for long, but Merlin had his 'are you just stupid?' look on his face.

Suddenly Merlin was grabbing him, dragging Arthur’s left arm back and pulling him off balance so that he teetered on one foot for a moment. Arthur grabbed Gwaine by reflex and the three of them jolted to a sudden stop.

“Are you crazy?” Arthur yelled over the sound from behind them, rapidly going closer. “You’re going to kill us all.”

“No. I’m not,” Merlin said, yanking Arthur closer, then reaching out to pull Gwaine close too. There must be some suicidal in joke or pact that Arthur had missed in the past four years, because Gwaine, as soon as Merlin touched him, just moved, seemingly unworried by the falling building and the death that was almost close enough to touch.

Arthur could see the fire coming towards them, moving treacle-slow, like Merlin had slowed down time, or something, which was an insane idea; no magic user could do that. Arthur knew the limitations of magic as well as he knew the back of his hand. They'd been hammered into his head throughout his life.

‘No magic is irreversible. Magic works around the laws of physics, it does not break them. Magic cannot undo the past.’

Time was out of bounds for magic. You could step outside of it for a minute or two, but you couldn’t affect the flow of the world.

But the fire should have hit them by now, Arthur knew. The explosion had gone on too long, and the fire was creeping along. They should have been swallowed by the flames before they even made it to the first door.

He glanced at Merlin, who was holding out a hand and saying words that Arthur couldn’t hear. He glanced at Gwaine, who just nodded back to Merlin with a sure look. Trust him, Arthur could almost hear.

Then, all at once, the fire sped up again and as it was about to hit them it... didn’t.

It flowed around the three of them like they were encased in a giant bubble, rippling blue where it seemed to hit the bubble’s edge.

“What the-?” Arthur asked, only the realising that the sound had been cut off at all.

“Magic,” Merlin said, exasperated. “I thought we’d covered that.”

“It does come in useful from time to time,” Gwaine said.

“But you just...” Arthur didn’t say it, didn’t let himself put the words onto his tongue. "Right, magic. You know, one day that excuse is going to get old."

“Arthur,” Merlin said. His voice was low and soft, almost liquid, and Arthur knew that tone too well for comfort. It was the tone used for early morning confidences and those times, long past, when it was just the two of them with the world shut out. It was Merlin's pillow talk voice, his cajoling voice, his touchy-feely voice.

“Yes, Merlin?” he said back, keeping his own voice abrupt. "Was there something you needed to say?"

“Well,” Merlin looked wary when he caught Arthur's eye, but he was not quite willing to keep his opinions to himself. "It was just that... It was Morgana."

“I can recognise my own step-sister when I see her, thank you." Gwaine was being mercifully silence, showing some of the tact that he so rarely used. Arthur couldn't bring himself to look at him though. There might be sympathy in his expression, and sympathy from Gwaine would be too great an insult to be borne. “What about her?”

“Are you alright?” Merlin hazarded.

“I’m fine, Merlin,” Arthur lied. “We already knew it was someone who could get inside information. It's not that big a leap." Apart from how it was, because it was Morgana, who had just looked at him with such hatred and who had just confessed to ripping his father to pieces.

“But she is your-”

“We're not going to talk about this,” Arthur said, clapping Merlin on the shoulder and straightening up. Because they weren’t, not ever again. This conversation was never going to happen. Even if they killed Morgana and stood in a pool of her blood, they were not going to talk about it. They weren’t going to talk about the fact that he had ever trusted her, or that she was family, because he was not about to cry into Merlin's shoulder about it. “And if you do talk about it, I will make your life a living hell. Do you understand me, Merlin?"

“Uh... yes?”

“Good. Now, in case you hadn't noticed, it seems to be a little safer out there, and we should probably get going before someone's sent in here to look for us. Don't you think?"

They left the building in uncomfortable silence. Well, Arthur did. Gwaine left the building whistling a little under his breath and commenting on how a good fire always made things look simpler, didn’t you think?

“You two do realise that this means they have all of the stones,” Gwaine said after a minute.

“It had crossed my mind,” Arthur agreed, wondering when people were going to stop pointing out the bleeding obvious.

“So essentially, from here on in it’s not so much a question of if we die, as a question of when.”

“You’re welcome to run for the hills,” Arthur said. “Save your own skin. I’m sure we can handle it.”

“You know your problem, Arthur," Gwaine said, swinging an arm round Arthur's shoulders. "You just don't have the imagination. Why on earth would I leave now, just when it’s getting interesting?"

“We're all crazy," Merlin said, sounding surprisingly okay for someone who had just almost been burnt to a crisp. "We're all mad, and we're going to die."

“But at least we’ll go down together,” Gwaine said, raising his hand as if holding a drink. “One for all, and all that.”

“We’re not the three buggering musketeers," Arthur said, shrugging Gwaine's arm off.

“Pity,” Gwaine called out behind him. “I mean, I’ve never been a great fan of muskets, but the buggery I could really get behind... if you know what I mean."

“Deaf Australian Wallabies would know what you meant!" Arthur said, turning. Gwaine just smirked back at him, hands stuck in his pockets, not blushing a little bit. Merlin, meanwhile, was biting his lips together to stop himself from laughing. "You know your problem, Gwaine?”

“Enlighten me.”

“You're just not funny."

“And you don’t have a sense of humour.”

“And you think everything’s a bloody joke.”

“Life’s easier when you’re laughing...” Gwaine said, surprisingly serious. “You should try it some time. Might get rid of those frown lines you're wearing into your pretty face."

“I laugh when things are funny," Arthur said. Gwaine patted him on the shoulder in mock sympathy as he went by. "I do... and I don't have wrinkles. He glared at Merlin who was smiling inanely (and inappropriately). "I don't."

“Just a few," Merlin said with a shrug, "but they're very distinguished." Then he walked past too, and Arthur gaped at the burnt out shell of a building they had just come from, unable to quite come up with the words.

“How did I end up stuck with you?” he asked.

“I think I should be asking that," Merlin said. "After all, one of you just followed me home one day, and the other turned up on my doorstep."

“You must have done something very good, to deserve a reward like that," Gwaine commented. "Well, and then done something very bad, to deserve Arthur."

“If I did something that bad I’m sure you had something to do with it.”

Arthur couldn't deal with it anymore. The banter, the cheer, the thrice damned way they looked at each other, smiling and looking and smiling.

“Does anyone actually have an idea of where we’re going?” he asked, making them both turn around to look at him for a change.

“Uh... I'm just following Gwaine," Merlin said, helpfully.

“I was just walking away from the giant bomb site,” Gwaine said with a shrug. "You went first," he gestured at Arthur.

“I -" don't have a clue, Arthur was about to say, but the words dried up on his tongue. "This way," he said, pointing down a side street. "Definitely this way." He remembered Leon telling him which way to go, but he couldn’t remember anymore. It was lost in thoughts of Morgana and his father. But it was always best to be decisive, even if you were being decisively wrong.

“And you’re sure about that?” Merlin asked.

“Of course I’m sure.” Arthur snapped.

“Realising of course, that now would be a rubbish time to get lost, really, as we're going to have to work out where Morgana's taken the stones, and work out how to get there and how to stop her and we might need to get there really quite fast,” Merlin continued, as though Arthur hadn’t just said that he was sure, one hundred percent sure (if you rounded up a little).

“No Merlin, I hadn't considered any of that. Thank you for bringing it to my attention, otherwise the end of the world and our imminent deaths would surely have slipped my mind."

“Just checking,” Merlin said. “Sometimes you do forget the important things.”

“Shut up, Merlin.”

“Oh, it is lovely to have the old team back together again,” Gwaine said, flipping his hair out of his eyes in a way that was far more annoying than attractive, Arthur was sure. Definitely more annoying. "Just like old times."

“Remember that time when I shot you in the foot?” Arthur asked. Gwaine winced and nodded. "Good."

They had barely walked half a block before a car pulled up next to them.

Gwaine stepped away, his hand going to the small of his back, where Arthur could see a suspicious looking lump. That answered the question of what else had been in that bag then. Not just the explosives.

Merlin’s hand was already extending when the window wound down and Arthur found himself face to face with Leon, who had never looked quite that relieved in all the time Arthur had known him.

“Get in,” Leon said and on his other side, Arthur could see Lancelot behind the wheel. “Quickly.”

Arthur, Merlin and Gwaine climbed into the back. Pleasantries of some sort were exchanged, though Arthur couldn’t have said what, even under threat of death. His mind switched off, because Leon and Lancelot were here, looking professional, and like they knew what they were doing, and they knew where they were going. So Arthur wasn’t stumbling around blindly anymore.

He let his head drop back against the head rest, staring out of the window, and let his mind drift.

*

-

part 7

-

PaperLegends: Tinker, Tailor, Wizard, Spy, Part 5, (R)

definewisdom — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 22:01:46 GMT

part 4

-

“Why aren’t they following us?” Arthur asked as they scrambled into the car.

“They’re thralls,” Merlin said, as though that explained everything.

“Meaning?”

“They follow orders. And that’s all they do. They weren’t sent there for us, they were sent there for the stone and Freya. As long as we’re not in their way, then we won’t be part of their plan.”

“That’s good.”

“We’ll still have to ditch the car,” Merlin said. “They’ll report back, and they’ll have the number plate. We’re only safe until they get back to whoever’s controlling them, then we’re next on the list.”

“They had guns,” Gwaine said.

“Yes,” Arthur agreed, looking at Gwaine curiously. He wasn’t the sort of person to go into shock. “I noticed that while they were shooting at me.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Gwaine said. “I meant that they had guns. Guns kill people with bullets, they don’t rip them apart and paint their blood on the ceiling. Could one of the thralls be using that kind of magic?”

“No,” Merlin said with certainty. “They’re just drones. Magic requires a certain amount of independence.”

“Then they weren’t the people who went after Nimueh,” Gwaine said.

“Or my father,” Arthur added. He frowned. “But why send the thralls after Freya and go after the other two personally?”

“The girl could change into a panther,” Gwaine pointed out. “I wouldn’t want to go up against that.”

“Nimueh could kill you with a smile,” Merlin said. “Compared to her, Freya’s… Freya’s an easy target.” Arthur watched him swallow. “It’s got to be something else.”

“Maybe they’re busy,” Gwaine suggested.

“Busy? Doing what?” Arthur asked.

“Who knows. But I’m willing to bet it’s not good.”

*

“I understand the complications, Sir,” Morgause Treherne was saying as Gwen knocked on the open door of Uther’s office. “But this was a targeted trap.” She waved Gwen in. “If the agents involved had been slightly slower to act, then there wouldn’t be anything left of them. You appointed me because I know more about this department than anyone else you could have appointed. The last time something like this happened, the Avalon Council was behind it.”

Gwen walked up to the desk and dropped the papers onto it with a smile. Morgause smiled back blankly.

“It’s precisely because Uther Pendragon’s dead that I think this is so important. It doesn’t seem like a coincidence. Either whoever killed him, his son or whoever else it turns out to be, was working with some other organisation, or news of his death has reached people who are taking advantage of the situation. It’s imperative that we take action to prevent this from becoming a national crisis. I want to declare a state of emergency.

“Yes, sir, I know what that will mean. But I need access to those resources if I’m going to control this situation.” Morgause lifted a hand to gesture Gwen back from the door.

“Yes, sir, I understand.

“Of course,” There was a pause and Morgause hung up. She looked up at Gwen, frowning.

“The events of today are unprecedented,” Morgause said. “One hell of a first day, hm?” Gwen nodded.

“Did you want something?”

“There are forms I need to sign to declare a state of emergency.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Gwen agreed.

“Could you get them for me? I’m afraid there are no other options.”

“Certainly.”

Gwen reached the door when Morgause’s mobile phone rang. She snatched it up.

“Tell me you have good news…

“Who?”

Gwen hurried out of the door and shut it behind her, taking a deep breath.

A state of emergency. There hadn’t been one of those in all the time she had worked at the Department. There were rumours that there had only ever been one in the whole history of the Department, after the death of Ygraine Pendragon. If Morgause was declaring a state of emergency, then things were more serious than she had ever imagined.

She walked back to her desk, to print off the forms.

*

“We shouldn’t be stealing a car,” Arthur said, not looking behind him at where a combination of Merlin’s magic and Gwaine’s less than legal skills were hotwiring a car.

“What else do you suggest we do?” Gwaine asked. “Walk into a car rental place and present our identification? In case you’d forgotten, we’re not being hunted down for tea and crumpets.”

“We could take public transport,” Arthur suggested.

“Really, because your stitches burst during our little scuffle earlier, and the blood’s soaking through your shirt,” Gwaine told him. “Someone might just notice that.”

The engine revved into life.

“Just because we’re being called criminals, doesn’t mean we need to act like them.”

“Nothing wrong with being a criminal,” Gwaine told him as Arthur turned around to look at their new car. At least, he thought bleakly, it didn’t look like as much of a death trap as Merlin’s had. “I’ll have you know that before I bumped into you and Merlin I was a very successful one.”

“I don’t want to know,” Arthur said.

“Really? I’ve got some brilliant stories…”

“Gwaine, stop upsetting Arthur’s world view. You know he can’t see the difference between legal and moral.”

“I can see the difference, I just don’t see how anyone could be proud of being a criminal.”

“Ah,” Gwaine said, “but I was a very good criminal.”

They climbed into the car, Gwaine taking the passenger seat, forcing Arthur into the back.

“You couldn’t have stolen a car with more leg space?” he asked.

“If you wanted a say in what sort of car we got, you could have helped.”

“Now,” Merlin said, cutting in with a tone of forced optimism. Arthur could tell that he was trying not to think of Freya. “Let’s get back home.”

*

“Gwen,” Leon said, walking into the main office of the Department. It was a huge, open plan room, all sleek shining desks and the newest computers. It looked like something out of a sci-fi show from his childhood, and in the middle of it all was Gwen, listening to something over her headset and her fingers typing themselves into a blur across the keyboard.

She smiled at him in acknowledgement.

“Yes sir, that’s understood,” she told whoever was on the other end of the line. “I’m sure that we’ll get that to you as soon as possible.”

Leon sat down in a free chair, feeling less comfortable in this room than he ever had. On the other side of the room he could see the investigators poring over files, some of them giving him distinctly suspicious looks over their shoulders. He ignored them as best he could and waited for Gwen to finish.

As she hung up the call, she stood.

“I’ve just got to fetch something from the records room,” she said apologetically. “Can we walk and talk?” Leon shot a glance over to the investigators and nodded briefly. “Brilliant, thanks.”

It was easier to breathe as soon as they were out of the room, and Gwen shook her head at him suddenly, her professional smile falling into a look of near anguish.

“This way,” she said, leading him down towards the records room, which was on a lower level. They stepped into the lift and, as soon as they were in there, she slid the sleeve of her jacket off and twisted a gem in her bracelet. All the colours of the lift suddenly seemed to turn sepia apart from him and Gwen, and the sensation of movement stopped.

“Gaius adapted it,” she said, by way of explanation. “It’s a prototype.”

“It stops time?” Leon asked.

“Yes,” she confirmed, “only for a short time and a short distance. Have you heard from Arthur?”

“He’s not stupid enough to contact me.” Leon lied. He didn’t want to, but as much as he trusted Gwen, he didn’t know if he trusted that device. Magic was tricky.

“He didn’t do it,” Gwen said with complete certainty. “I know he and Uther weren’t seeing eye to eye about things recently, not since Merlin, really. But he would never have…”

“I know,” Leon said, keeping his voice hushed, not quite trusting himself to magical technology. “I need you to look through the footage of that night and get it to me somehow.”

“They’ve locked off all the investigation into Uther’s death,” Gwen told him, her eyes dropping. “No one in the department’s supposed to go near it, to avoid conflict of interest.”

“Gwen,” Leon said. Her eyes snapped up to him and they held each other’s gaze. “I knew your father, and we went to school together. There’s nothing on a computer that you and your brother can’t find.”

“I’ll get it for you,” she said. “I might need Elyan’s help. But if it’ll help Arthur, then I’ll do it.”

“Good.”

“While we’re…” Gwen waved a hand at the strange sepia tone of the world. “Do you know this Aredian?”

“Never heard of him before.”

“There are others. Some man named Cedric insisted on having access to my workstation this morning, and there’s a woman whose name I didn’t catch. They say they’re from the security services and the government, but I’m not sure. They seem different somehow.”

“You think they might have something to do with all of this.”

“I don’t know what to think,” Gwen told him, letting out a deep breath. “I mean, Uther’s suite was the most heavily protected place in the country. No one could have got in there.”

“Apart from Arthur,” Leon said.

“But he wouldn’t,” Gwen repeated, shooting him a hard glance. “So someone got past the impassable security, and someone killed him.”

“They were making a point,” Leon said, remembering the sight of Uther’s face, above the mess of his body. “They wanted us to know that they could get to him and to any of us. They killed him, framed Arthur and they’re going to get away with it. It was a message.”

Gwen paused, as though she was going to say something she didn’t want to.

“They’re asking about Merlin, too. About him and Arthur. They say that it’s because that was the last big security breach but…”

There was a strange flickering, like dull strobe lighting.

“It’s wearing off,” Gwen said. “Before it goes completely – You should know, Morgause is declaring a state of emergency. I heard her on the phone.” Leon opened his mouth to reply, but there was one last flicker of light and the sepia faded away, leaving the world in its true colours again, the lift continuing to move as though it had never stopped.

They went down to the records room, Leon asking some rather inane questions regarding insignificant cases they were supposed to be investigating, Gwen making non-committal answers.

Then Leon walked out and left Gwen to deal with Geoffrey, the head of the records room and one of the more crotchety of the Department’s old guard.

*

They had barely been back in Merlin’s house for a few minutes before a buzzing noise began, like white noise. Arthur was in the kitchen, taking more pain medication, and Merlin ran in.

“We’ve got to go,” he said.

“Why?” Arthur asked.

“That’s the early warning system. Someone’s coming here.” Merlin had a duffel bag slung over his shoulder, and he was pulling his shoes on, hopping from one leg to the other. Arthur hadn’t taken his off yet.

“Where’s Gwaine?” he asked.

“He went to the shop down the road,” Merlin said, looking anxious. “We needed some food; I haven’t been shopping in a week.”

“How-“ Arthur started, “Why-” He gave up, spluttering into silence and headed for the back door, “We’ll pick him up on the way.”

“That’s the plan,” Merlin said, “Now - go.”

They were out of the back door in seconds and jumping over the fence into the garden of the next door neighbours. They sprinted over the next lawn and then scaled the next fence into the next garden.

Arthur was grateful he had had the time to take the new dose of painkillers. He knew that the running and the climbing must have been opening old wounds up again, but he couldn’t really feel them.

When they were four gardens away, they heard a shout from behind them.

“They know we’ve run for it,” Merlin said. “How could they know we’d just left?”

“The toaster,” Arthur said. “You had some bread I…” he stopped talking to concentrate on climbing the next fence, and risked a glance behind them, He could see the tops of heads in the back garden of Merlin’s house.

Three more gardens and they reached the end of the street. Arthur went over first, and he caught Merlin’s bag as he swung it over, and then almost ended up being squashed under Merlin himself as he catapulted himself over the fence.

“Where’s the shop?” Arthur asked. Merlin pointed and started walking, Arthur following.

They rounded the corner and came out by the shop. Arthur could see a huge car outside Merlin’s house, and several men outside. One of them had long brown hair.

“He’ll be in here,” Merlin said, indicating the shop. But Arthur held up a hand as he caught sight of something.

“I don’t think he will,” he said.

Two of the men half way down the street seemed to be struggling with something, and when they turned around, Arthur could see Gwaine between them, his arms caught. Just as Arthur caught sight of him, one of the other men, the one with the longer hair, caught sight of them and shouted, pointing.

The distraction was just what Gwaine needed to get away from the men holding him, Arthur saw one of them hit the ground.

“RUN!” Gwaine’s voice echoed up the street. Then he followed his own advice and ran, away from them, towards the other end of the street.

Arthur grabbed hold of Merlin, who seemed poised to start running in the wrong direction, and pulled him in the opposite direction, away from the men and Gwaine.

“We’ve got to help him,” Merlin insisted, Arthur hauled him round the corner, practically lifting him off his feet.

There were gunshots.

“We need to get out of here.”

“Gwaine’s got the stone,” Merlin said.

Footsteps clattered on the pavement, and there was the distant sound of gunshots.

“He ran away from us for a reason,” Arthur said. “They were expecting him to go towards us. That gave him an extra second’s head start, and it split their forces. He doesn’t want us to go back for him.”

“But if they get him.” Merlin started moving on his own, but he was still looking behind them.

“Do you trust him?” Arthur asked. Merlin turned his face towards him, looking at Arthur for the first time since they had caught sight of Gwaine.

“Of course.”

“Then trust him to know what he’s doing,” Arthur said. “I don’t know him as well as you do, but if I know one thing about him, it’s that he’s about as good at getting himself out of trouble as he is at getting into it.”

We’re going to need a new car,” Merlin said after a moment, running properly.

“Two cars in one day.”

“You’re wanted for murder, Arthur,” Merlin pointed out, “what’s a little car theft added on to that?”

“You have a point.”

*

Aredian had his shark smile on again. Leon forced himself to smile back, as pleasantly as possible.

“Sit down, Agent Harris,” Aredian said. There was an edge to his voice that hadn’t been there before. He sounded smug, and Leon had to swallow back a moment of panic. Does he know? was the first question flashing through his brain. After what Gwen had said, it was possible that they had overheard that phone conversation.

“I prefer to stand,” he said lightly.

“Sit down, Agent Harris,” Aredian repeated, his face losing all trace of nicety. Leon sat as nonchalantly as he could manage and wondered whether they’d send him to the detention centre or to an ordinary prison, or maybe there wouldn’t be any prison at all. They weren’t exactly an official organisation in any traditional sense of the word. It would be easy for them to…

He pulled his brain away from the idea and back to the matter at hand.

“We have a few more questions about Agent Pendragon,” Aredian said, looking down at the sheet of paper in front of him, as though he didn’t know precisely what he was about to say. “Approximately four years ago, there was an incident, I believe.”

Leon had been prepared for that question and thanked Gwen for the heads up.

“One of our agents was discovered to be a magic user.”

“And he ran, with the aid of another of your agents, and he has not yet been discovered,” Aredian continued. “A Merlin Emrys, I believe.”

“Yes, sir,” Leon said calmly, choosing to stare at a spot on Aredian’s cheek rather than look him in the eyes. There was a certain mindset you could get in at times like these, it had been a mindset that had worked well when reporting failure to Uther, where you answered automatically and kept everything so deep down inside that it didn’t even shimmer on the surface. Arthur had never quite managed to get it down, his emotions had always been visible if you were looking hard enough.

“How did that affect Agent Pendragon?”

“He was understandably upset,” Leon replied.

“Of course,” Aredian said, smiling sharply. “Just as he is understandably upset by his father’s death.”

“Yes.”

“That wasn’t a question.” Aredian tapped his fingertips against the table in an arrhythmic beat which set Leon’s teeth on edge. “I can see that from his records, actually. Four years ago they take a distinct turn. Not for the worse, of course, he was always an exemplary agent. Dotted every i and crossed every t, so to speak. But there is a definite pattern. It appears that in the aftermath of the discovery of Mr Emrys’s deception, Agent Pendragon became more reckless.”

“It’s a dangerous job,” Leon said. “Sometimes you have to take risks.”

“He ended up in the hospital seventeen times in one year, and in the scientific research centre with unidentifiable magical injuries five times in the same period of time.”

“Arthur wasn’t afraid to lead from the front,” Leon tried to keep as much of the acid out of his voice as he could. “He didn’t sit back and let other people take the risks for him.”

“You call him Arthur,” Aredian said. “Why is that?”

“We’ve worked closely together for years. It would be strange to refer to him as ‘Agent Pendragon’ all the time.”

“Would you refer to him as a friend?” Aredian asked.

“I see most of my colleagues as friends. It’s difficult not to in this job.”

“A good answer, almost textbook, Agent Harris.”

“And a truthful one.”

“So, as his friend,” Aredian drew the word out like an insinuation, “did you ever have reason to worry about his attitude to his work in the past four years?”

“I-“ Leon looked down at the innocent looking papers in front of Aredian and knew, immediately, where this was going. “He was coping, and I never worried about having him protect my back.”

“Then why did you express concern to a colleague about his drinking? Did Agent Pendragon drink a lot?”

“He overindulged a couple of times, no more than anyone else in this department has done on other occasions.”

“And yet you’ve never mentioned the drinking habits of other colleagues. Would you say that Agent Pendragon had become, or was on his way to becoming an alcoholic?”

“No.”

“But you don’t deny that you expressed your concerns about this?”

“I may have made a comment, in confidence, to a colleague. I never made a formal statement to that effect.”

“So were you or were you not concerned about Agent Pendragon’s alcoholism.”

“He’s not an alcoholic.”

“Answer the question.”

“I-“ Leon drew in a breath. “I was not overly concerned.”

“But you were concerned,” Aredian continued.

“He was upset, of course I was concerned,” Leon snapped.

“Upset about Mr Emrys’s betrayal.”

“Yes.”

“More than anyone else in the department?”

“They worked together a lot. More than anyone else,” Leon clarified, trying to rein back his irritation and gain his calm façade again.

“So they were close?” Aredian’s eyebrow rose up his forehead.

“When you trust someone to keep you alive, you have to be close to them,” Leon said.

“How close would you say that Mr Emrys and Agent Pendragon were?”

“Excuse me?”

“Don’t be coy, Agent Harris. I’m asking if you thought that they were lovers.”

“I don’t see what that question has to do with anything that you could be investigating?”

“Agent Pendragon has been erratic since Mr Emrys left. He’s been descending into alcoholism and suicidal tendencies.”

“Arthur’s not suicidal.” But Aredian ignored Leon’s words as though they had never even occurred.

“Our records show that his relationship with his father was rapidly deteriorating as well. If Mr Emrys was his lover then that would explain several things.”

Leon looked Aredian in the eye for the first time since walking in. There wasn’t anything there but reflective, blank blue. He remembered Arthur and Merlin. They had barely been apart and of course, he had wondered. He had always wondered, especially in the years afterwards, when it had been his unofficial job to scrape Arthur off bars and pavements and carry him back to his flat as he murmured Merlin’s name mingled with curses and pleas.

He remembered the way Arthur had used to kick out at Merlin’s office chair, sending him spinning across the room, the way, one week when nothing much was happening, Merlin had built a catapult out of rulers, pencils and elastic bands, just to fire Maltesers at Arthur’s head.

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Right,” Aredian said. “You said earlier that you would refer to all your colleagues as friends. Would you also have referred to Mr Emrys as such?”

“Yes,” Leon said, without even pausing.

“And yet you have no idea whether two of your friends – people you trusted to watch your back, people you trusted with your life – were in a relationship? I thought you were supposed to be observant, Agent Harris.” Leon dragged his eyes away from Aredian’s and studied a spot on the far wall as closely as he could.

“You had a lucky escape this morning,” Aredian said, changing tack again, making Leon’s eyes dart back to him in surprise for a split second before he could regain composure. “I understand that you saved the lives of both Agent Smith and my own colleague.”

“It was a close call.”

“How did that work, exactly?” Aredian asked. His voice sounded light and interested, but in the same way that the tide went out before a tsunami hit.

“I followed procedure.”

“Ah, procedure,” Aredian said. “My colleague says that ‘procedure’ involved extensive equipment and what seemed, from his point of view, to be an enormous amount of luck.” Leon thought about Cedric, who had been still been gibbering a little when he had left him. “But I’ve looked through the books of procedure, and what you were on appeared to be nothing more than a small anomaly in the electro-magnetic fields. Standard procedure calls for no more technical equipment than a handheld magic detection device. Yet you deliberately chose not to touch the infected house. Why is that?”

“It was too quiet,” Leon said slowly. “I’ve been doing this job for almost twelve years. You learn to trust your instincts.”

“Your instincts are clearly finely tuned… about these sorts of things, if not others.”

“Sometimes you’re right, sometimes you’re wrong. It never hurts to take precautions.”

“You knew to hide behind the car, you knew not to touch the door,” Aredian went on, “some people would balk at calling that luck, or instinct. Some people might think that your instincts were based on information.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“I’m not suggesting anything. I’m just pointing out that such good luck seems rather unlikely, wouldn’t you agree.”

“You’re saying that something’s wrong because I’m good at my job.”

“If anyone else had been sent out to that house this morning do you think they would have come back alive?” Aredian asked.

“So I’m being interrogated because I’m alive?”

“Did you have information about that house this morning?”

“You think I had something to do with it? If I had had anything to do with that trap, why would I have gone myself? Surely if I had laid a trap like that I would have done it for some other reason than to almost kill myself?”

“Perhaps you didn’t realise that it was a trap until you were told.”

“Told by who?”

“My colleague reported that you had a phone call just before you instinctively decided to take extra precautions. Who was that phone call from?”

“A contact, about another case entirely.”

“No name?”

“Informants names are protected, for their own safety, and for the safety of our information network,” Leon said. “Just the same as with the police. You can’t ask me to give up my sources. You don’t have that level of clearance.”

“No. But I am allowed to make my own conclusions based on the evidence at hand, and that evidence is pointing a rather large finger at you.”

“Sir?” Leon felt as though the bottom had dropped out of his stomach. He breathed through his nose as steadily as he could and tried to stop his alarm from showing on his face. He watched as Aredian slipped a hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out an evidence bag with something small and gold in the bottom, a pin in the shape of a dragon.

“I believe this pin is given to Agents for serving in the department for ten years,” Aredian said, dropping it onto the table. Leon’s fingers when automatically to the breast pocket of his jacket, but he only felt the hole where the pin had gone. “There are seven agents who have one of these. Arthur Pendragon was not one of them, though I believe he wears the silver pin for five years service. All the others have accounted for theirs. Yours, however, seems to be missing.”

Leon reached out for the bag. Aredian didn’t stop him, so he picked it up. The dragon was definitely his, the tip of the wing had been bent back six months ago when it had fallen on the floor and he had stood on it accidentally. It was exactly as he remembered it being, apart from a pattern of dark brown specks across it.

“Where did you find this?” he asked, trying to remember when he last knew that he had had it.

“It was on the floor, five feet from Uther Pendragon’s body.”

“I was there this morning, it could have fallen then.”

“The marks on it are blood, Uther Pendragon’s blood,” Aredian told him, “they’re consistent with high velocity spatter our experts assure me.”

“I had nothing to do with Uther’s death. This proves nothing. I wear this on my jacket, and I leave my jacket places all the time. It could have been taken from me by anyone.”

“By Arthur, perhaps?” Leon just glared at him, his fingers brushing round the badge, tracing over its lines for some form of comfort. It didn’t give him any. “You’re right, of course, we can’t arrest you for murder based on a badge. Your jacket has no signs of blood on it, after all, and you could have lost it at any time. But combined with other factors – your close friendship with Arthur Pendragon, your detailed knowledge of this morning’s attack, you understand that we can’t allow you to continue working here unchecked.”

“You’re firing me?”

“For the time being you are suspended indefinitely and without pay, until an investigation into your activities can be completed. You will be monitored.”

“I’m being suspended for being too good at my job,” Leon said in disbelief.

“Please hand over your gun and your pass-card for this building. You will be escorted home by one of my colleagues.”

“I know my way home, thanks.”

“The escort is not optional,” Aredian stood up, prompting Leon to do the same, if only so that he could have the slight advantage in height, if nothing else. “Your gun and your pass-card, please.”

“Sir.” Leon pulled his gun from its holster and placed it onto the table carefully. He unclipped his pass-card from his shirt pocket and placed that down next to it.

“Will you require anything from your desk?” Aredian asked.

“Do I have a choice?”

“Nothing that belongs to the department,” Aredian told him, “but your personal effects, of course.”

“Then no, there’s nothing in my desk.”

The walk from the interrogation room through the heart of the department was both longer and shorter than he had ever seen it before. He passed people on the way out who watched him with huge, shocked eyes. He tried not to look at them, concentrating on the back of the man in front of him – his own personal guard. But what little glimpses he caught out of the side of his eyes, gave him the impression that his departure was causing more worry than suspicion.

They had reached the front desk when Gwen came flying towards them, trying to combine speed and professionalism and succeeding after a fashion. He smiled at her as she caught up.

“Leon!” she said, catching hold of his arm. “I just heard…” She looked at the man next to him bitterly. “I can’t believe that they’d ever think that you…” Gwen trailed off and sighed, shaking her head. Then she did the unexpected and flung her arms around his neck. He tried not to look too surprised and tentatively hugged her back. Then, as she pulled back, he felt something drop into his jacket pocket and he caught her eye. “Be careful,” she said, before turning to walk away.

He didn’t put his hands into his pockets immediately. He didn’t even let his finger twitch in that direction, though his curiosity was on edge. He cast one long glance back at Gwen’s retreating back as she walked towards the lifts, and then turned as his guard coughed impatiently.

*

The drive back was uncomfortable and awkward. The guard didn’t speak more than three words the whole time, two of which were ‘seat belt’ and the other was a muttered curse as another driver cut in front of him. Leon sat in the back, trying to pretend that made it more like being in a taxi, than being in a police car.

He got out without waiting for permission when they pulled up outside his house, and he glanced around the street. There were at least three people watching the place, he could see without even trying. He ignored the weight of their gazes as best as he could, and unlocked the door, walking in and picking up his junk mail from the doormat.

There was no one for him to talk to at home, which was a blessing. He didn’t think he could handle explanations at this point.

He walked into the living room and flopped back onto the sofa, hyperaware that whoever was watching him had more than enough money and time to have bugged his entire house.

He slipped his hand into his pocket experimentally and felt it close around three things. A slip of folded paper, a mobile phone and something strange, rounded shapes that moved like a chain.

He frowned, fiddling with the mystery item. His fingers slid over smooth hemispheres and then dipped into gaps. He finally reached an end, which had some sort of moving part which he could pull back with a fingernail and which snapped back into place, as though spring-loaded.

It came to him in a flash of inspiration. Gwen’s bracelet. He sat up a little straighter without meaning to, before remembering the surveillance, which must have been why she had given it to him in the first place. There was no point in passing on a secret message if it would be monitored immediately.

He found each of the hemispheres again – gems he knew now – and pushed at them slightly until he found the one which gave way. He turned it and watched the colours fade into sepia again, memorising his exact position before pulling the paper and the mobile out of his pocket.

The paper had a mobile number written on it in Gwen’s precise handwriting. Leon dialled it immediately, knowing instinctively that the phone was more secure than any other phone he could use. All he could hear for a few seconds was dial tone, and he wondered whether the effects of the bracelet would wear off before he finished the phone call. Then it finally began to ring and he heaved a sigh of relief, though one eye was on the window out of some sort of nervousness.

The phone at the other end of the line was answered and a familiar voice said.

“Gwen, what’s happened?”

“Lancelot?” Leon said, unable to keep the incredulity out of his voice. He knew that Gwen and Lancelot had been close. But Lancelot had left the Department almost four years ago, in the aftermath of Merlin’s escape. Why would Gwen want him to contact Lancelot, of all people?

“Leon?” Lancelot said, echoing him in disbelief. “How did you get this number? Is Gwen okay?”

“She’s fine,” Leon assured him down the line, “it’s me that’s in trouble. She gave me this number.”

“Is this about Uther?”

“You know about that?”

“Everyone who knows anything about magic knows about that.”

“Someone’s set Arthur up,” Leon said, “and the Internal Affairs people are on some kind of witch hunt. I’m on suspension pending investigation. They think I’m a traitor.”

“Can you get away unseen?”

“I don’t think so,” Leon admitted.

“That’s more difficult,” Lancelot told him, “but if you still live at the same address I think we can get to you. Is that okay?”

“That sounds like a good idea. I don’t… I don’t trust Internal Affairs,” Leon admitted out loud for the first time. They’re certain that Arthur did it and the interim director she’s… She’s magical.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

“We’ll get to you as soon as we can,” Lancelot told him. “Try and act normal.”

“I’m not sure what ‘normal’ is in this situation.” That earned him a ragged laugh from the other end.

“Fair point. See you shortly.” Lancelot hung up, just in time, as the sepia began to shimmer.

Leon stuffed the phone and paper back into his pocket and resumed his position as carefully as he could.

The world faded into colour again and he propped his feet up on the table. His mind spun with questions. Why had Gwen given him Lance’s number? Who were the ‘we’ that Lance was talking about? And the bigger questions, about the department and its new director, about who the men outside his house were working for, about who had taken his ten year service badge and worn it to kill Uther Pendragon.

He dropped his head back against the sofa and closed his eyes, groaning.

*

Arthur opened the passenger side door of the car and threw Merlin into the passenger seat, grabbing the keys from his pocket. There were some shots after them, and one of their pursuers made it to the car door. Merlin’s shield was the only thing that prevented Arthur from having his brains blown out at close range, but it didn’t stop the car window from shattering into a thousand sharp, shimmering pieces.

A wave of Merlin’s hand and the ignition was turning and the car flared into life.

“Useful,” Arthur muttered, but he didn’t get a response.

He hit the accelerator and drove as fast and as far as he could. As he looked in the mirror he saw a man staring after them with more purpose than any of the others had had. He didn’t hold himself like a zombie or a puppet. He had long dark hair but that was all Arthur could really see. He didn’t stick around long enough to see more.

“We can’t go back to your house,” Arthur said. “And we’ll have to ditch the car. We’ll have to find some way to contact Gwaine though.”

He refused to believe that Gwaine was dead. The idea didn’t fit into his brain. For all his insanity and risk taking, Gwaine had always seemed strangely invincible. The idea of him shot dead just didn’t work, not even a little bit.

“He’ll know where I’ll go,” Merlin said. “We have back up plans, and stuff.”

“What do you mean?” Arthur asked. He couldn’t stop checking his rear view mirror, convinced that they were being followed, though it would take their pursuers too long to get back to their vehicle and come after them.

“There’s a travel lodge,” Merlin said. “We should check in there with the name ‘Mr Bristow’.”

“You have a contingency plan for if you can’t go back to your own house?” Arthur asked. He knew he worked for a secret government organisation, but he’d never heard anything quite so ridiculously James Bond in his life.

“We’re on the run from the government,” Merlin said, “it was always going to be a possibility.” He didn’t manage to put the humour into that sentence that Arthur would have expected, and when Arthur stopped his obsessive mirror checking long enough to glance over at him, he saw that Merlin looked broken.

“They’ll be fine,” Arthur said. “Gwaine’s run away from more men with guns than anyone else I know, and he’s never even been shot.”

Merlin nodded, but he didn’t say anything.

*

They made it to the travel lodge all right, and the woman at the desk didn’t even bat an eyelid when she looked at them. Arthur’s photograph either hadn’t been circulated, or she didn’t watch the news.

They walked up to the room in silence, eyeing everyone who passed them with concern and suspicion. It wasn’t until the door of their room had closed behind them that Arthur let his shoulders relax even a little. But Merlin was still wound up. He sat on the end of the bed, bolt upright. Arthur took the desk chair. He was starting to ache again, and he knew that if he sat anywhere comfortable then he’d never get back up.

“Gwaine should be here by now,” Merlin said, pacing the room again. Arthur glared at his legs from the desk chair. It was all he could see without raising his head, and he didn’t want to do that. He didn’t want to make eye contact, not right now. The flow of hope that Merlin had managed to bring about that morning had ebbed away second by second, leaving him in no doubt that this nightmare would never end.

“He probably got distracted by some alcohol, or a girl,” Arthur managed to say, though there was no energy in the words.

“He wouldn’t do that,” Merlin said. "I know what you think of him, but he's not like that."

“He’s never exactly shown signs of professionalism, Merlin,” Arthur said. "When we first met him he was half naked in a bar."

“Then it’s a good thing he’s not working in a professional capacity right now then, isn’t it?” Merlin's tone dragged Arthur’s eyes to meet his. "Believe me when I say that there is nothing Gwaine wouldn't do for his friends."

“You mean there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for you."

Merlin stared back at him, clearly insulted by something in his tone or affronted by the words themselves. He didn't understand why, Gwaine had always made it clear where his loyalties lay, hadn't he?

“In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m pretty much the only friend he’s got,” Merlin snapped back, though as soon as the words were out of his mouth his face spasmed with guilt for a moment. “And he’s pretty much the only friend I’ve got as well.”

“Yes, I've heard that betrayal can be lonely," Arthur said. There was a strange, vicious sort of glee that stabbed through him when he saw Merlin flinch back, as though struck. Good, he thought, feel guilty, and underneath that, quieter, more brokenly: you left me.

“I never –“ Merlin began, but then he threw up his arms in exasperation. "You really want to do this now? In the middle of all this you want to have this conversation? Because we will, if you want."

“I-“ Arthur started, but apparently Merlin was more interested in a monologue than a conversation, because he kept going as though Arthur hadn’t even spoken.

“I’m magic. I’m a sorcerer. No I didn’t tell you. Surprise!” Sparks flew from Merlin's hands, forming a small gold Pegasus that flew between them. Arthur's mouth stayed open, jaw relaxing as no words came. “Is that what you wanted me to say? When would have been the best time, do you think? While we were tracking down dangerous magical killers? While we were running for our lives? While we were filling in reports recommending that people be remanded in detention for the rest of their lives? While we were standing in front of your father as he told us that we needed to 'strike down harder on the magical menace'?"

“He never used the phrase magical menace in his life,” Arthur said. It was inappropriate and completely out of line, but it was enough to steal the next words from Merlin's mouth. "How about telling me when we were chatting over beers? When we got coffee on a break in between all-nighters. When I fell asleep on your floor? When you fell asleep on my sofa and snored like a warthog... when you woke up in my bed the first time, or -- Fuck Merlin! -- maybe the night before that when we... You had chances. Don't act like you didn't have chances."

“And if I’d said it then,” Merlin asked, standing his ground with more composure than Arthur thought he had ever seen on the man’s face before. “If I had said that, then, what would have happened next?”

Arthur opened his mouth to say something comforting, something like 'exactly what happened next when you didn't' or 'I wouldn't have cared'. But the words weren't true. He didn't know what he would have done. He brought down his fist on the fake wood of the desktop, the bang resounding through the room like a gunshot.

“That’s what I thought,” Merlin said. His voice was quiet now.

“I wish you’d told me,” Arthur replied. Though he knew that was a lie too. He was selfishly glad that it hadn’t happened that way, that he hadn’t been forced to make that decision. “I wish I knew.” He didn’t mean about the magic that time though. He wished he knew what he would have done if Merlin had told him. He wished that he could have had Gwaine's courage and stood up and sided with Merlin, to hell with the consequences. He wished he had that much freedom in his actions.

“You couldn’t have stayed,” he said into the rather hollow silence. “Even if I hadn’t,” pointed a gun at you and threatened your life, “you couldn’t have stayed. They all saw.”

“I know,” Merlin said. Arthur watched him fall back onto the hotel bed with a huff of a sigh. He watched the bounce of his knees against the mattress. “I know. But I wish it hadn’t ended like that.”

“I’m glad,” Arthur began, uncertain how to voice the words. He didn’t want to voice them, not even a little bit. “I’m glad you had someone." He couldn't quite bring himself to say Gwaine as though the name would make it more tangible somehow.

“So am I."

The room felt broken. Arthur sitting by the desk, Merlin thrown down on the bed. The bland expanse of functional hotel carpet between them. There were cars rushing past outside and Arthur wondered how he hadn't noticed that they were facing the road until then. He noticed things like that. It was his job to notice things like that. The traffic noises seemed to grow louder second by second.

“I should have told you,” Merlin said. He sounded as uncomfortable as Arthur felt.

“I know why you didn’t,” Arthur said, almost without wanting to.

“I still should have told you. I should have trusted you,” Merlin shrugged.

“Did Gwaine know?” Arthur asked. It wasn’t the question he wanted to ask, but it was safer than ‘did you miss me?’ and ‘do you still want me?’ which were both threatening to run off his tongue. “Before, I mean.”

“No,” Merlin said immediately and without hesitation. “It was as much of a surprise to him that day as it was to you.”

Arthur doubted that that was true. He doubted that anyone had ever been as surprised as he had been that day when he had gritted his teeth and screwed his eyes shut, expecting to be crushed only to find himself protected, and his boyfriend with one hand extended and his eyes bright gold.

“Lancelot knew,” Merlin said, after a moment. “I didn’t tell him, he found out.”

Arthur wanted to be annoyed about that, but he found that he couldn’t, not really. Lancelot was the sort of person who knew things like that, and he hadn’t threatened Merlin’s life. He had even stood in Merlin’s corner.

“He quit, you know,” Arthur said after a moment. “I think it was in protest for what happened to you, but he never said. But he left.”

“He’s a good man,” Merlin said with a half smile.

Arthur didn’t know whether to agree with that or not. There was the definite implication behind the words ‘you’re not’. He didn’t think that Merlin meant it like that, but it was undeniable. Gwaine and Lancelot, they had both stood up for their friend in their own ways. They had dared to fight for him, but Arthur hadn’t. Arthur had stayed and fallen apart. He’d gone out and got drunk, and then he’d picked himself up and wobbled on for another few months before repeating the process. He swallowed down his pride and opened his mouth, the apology rising steadily up his throat. But nothing came

"He'll be fine," Arthur said, after seconds oozed into minutes. "He always is, remember."

Merlin shot him a momentary, dazzling grin, before his face fell slack again.

“I know,” he said. “He can take care of himself. But I always feel responsible. You were right when you said he left for me. He came with me and I've done nothing but-"

“He can also make his own decisions,” Arthur pointed out. "Though I don't know which idea is worse: Gwaine on his own, or Gwaine with help from your rather inept brain cells.”

“Hey!” Merlin’s arm reached out to grab a pillow and lob it at him. Arthur caught it easily. "I thought you were apologising for being an enormous git.”

“If either of us was apologising, Merlin, it was you." The pillow was thrown back, hitting Merlin quite satisfyingly in the face, muffling his cry of outrage.

Feeling brave, Arthur stood up and crossed the fissure in the room until his knee was less than ten centimetres from Merlin’s. Merlin, face still hidden beneath the pillow (which he was spectacularly failing to get off his face with bizarre arm flails) didn’t even notice.

“I’m actually surprised either of you lasted this long,” Arthur said as airily as he could. “You have no idea how easy you were to track down when I started looking.”

The pillow finally lost the fight, flung across the room by a flick of magic (and why hadn’t Merlin just done that in the first place?) Merlin started when he saw Arthur so close and shrugged, a movement that looked a lot stranger on someone lying down, the duvet bunching around him.

“We were stealthy," he complained, "we were really stealthy."

“You don’t even know the meaning of the word,” Arthur told him, “and Gwaine's idea of stealth is just not blowing up anything bigger than a car." Merlin chuckled a little.

“Your fake name is the name of your imaginary pet dog," Arthur said after another moment. Merlin shrugged again, his t-shirt riding up as he did so, and refusing to go back down.

“Only you would have known that!" Merlin protested. "I only ever told you and Will."

“You don’t seem to have grasped the mechanics of the situation very well,” Arthur said, speaking a little more slowly just to hammer his point home. “I was the person you were hiding from. Leaving clues that I could see through in a heartbeat was hardly the best idea.”

“I wasn’t hiding from you,” Merlin said. He was looking at Arthur with a gaze that saw right through him.

“I could have told my father,” Arthur said. “I could have hunted you down and killed you. I could have sent rabid wyverns after you – we have some you know, in the research centre.”

“You didn't,” Merlin said. His grin was smug and Arthur sighed in infuriation at his ridiculous faith.

“How are you even alive?” he asked.

“I could ask you the same thing,” Merlin retorted. “You were always useless without me. The number of times I saved your neck from being broken, or your heart from being ripped out of your chest, or your head from being eaten, or your skin from being flayed from your bones."

“I got myself out of tho-“ Arthur started, before noticing Merlin’s rather gleeful grin. “You? You and your meddling?"

“Thank you, Merlin, for saving my arse repeatedly without any reward."

“You?” Arthur asked again, aghast. “Seriously, you?”

“You’ve had four years to work it out and you’re really only now getting to this bit?” Merlin asked, reaching up to wrap his knuckles lightly against Arthur’s forehead, making Arthur dimly aware that he must have sat down on the edge of the bed at some point. “And you tell me I’m slow.”

“You are.”

“Well, you’re slower.”

“Any slower than you and I’d be going through my life backwards,” Arthur retorted, Making Merlin look smug. “No, not like that. I didn’t mean. Just… fuck. You saved my life.”

“And you threatened to kill me."

“I didn’t know,” Arthur said. “I didn’t know.”

“You learnt about my magic after I used it to stop a falling building from crushing you to death. What did you think I was using it for the rest of the time?"

“I didn’t know.” Arthur wondered if he should say the rest, tell Merlin the ‘I had to’ because if he hadn’t then maybe Merlin would have been stupid enough not to run. Arthur had had to take away any reason he had to stay.

“It’s okay,” Merlin told him, “you don’t need brains. Just get by on your good looks and rippling muscles. I’ll be the brains for both of us.”

Arthur took in Merlin’s rather scarily wide grin and his bright blue eyed gaze and groaned.

“We’re doomed,” he said.

"And that,” Merlin said, triumphantly, “is exactly why I make the plans. It’s all in the attitude.”

Arthur realised that the back of his hand was somehow pressed up against Merlin’s thigh, rough denim rubbing against it as Merlin squirmed to get more comfortable. He lifted it up, startled, and Merlin froze.

They looked at each other, suddenly awkward again, and Arthur slowly lowered his hand back down so that his fingers were resting on Merlin’s thigh.

It was probably for the best, Arthur decided, that they heard the key card slide into the door lock then, and Arthur was reaching for a weapon he no longer had and Merlin was suddenly sitting up, hand splayed at the door in a motion that would have looked ridiculous to anyone who hadn't known Merlin could stop bullets with a thought.

The door opened and Gwaine walked in carrying a heavy looking bag. He smiled rather serenely at the agitation on their faces. And, to Arthur’s irrational annoyance, he looked none the worse for wear for all his adventure.

“You couldn’t have knocked," Arthur said, his voice dropping to a low growl.

“Didn’t interrupt anything, did I?” Gwaine asked cheerily. Merlin shook his head and Arthur just continued glaring. "Really - I’m out risking my life for you two layabouts and you’re-“ The pillow hit him full force in the face. “Emrys.”

“You’re not dead,” Merlin announced to the world as though this was a new piece of information and not something that was blatantly obvious from Gwaine’s appearance in the room. He was on his feet in a second and Arthur watched the pair of them hug in a way that had none of the awkwardness Arthur had never managed to get rid of. "Brilliant. Do you still have it?"

“You're going to start doubting me now?” Gwaine asked, pulling away, but leaving his hand on Merlin’s shoulder, like it was…

Arthur cut off the thought. He cut off the whole part of his brain that was thinking it and then he looked at Gwaine's face rather than his hand and reminded himself that his world was falling apart and that had nothing to do with where Gwaine put his hands.

“Do you?” Arthur asked, raising an eyebrow and ignoring Gwaine’s knowing little smirk.

“Of course, your highness.” He pulled away from Merlin and bowed a deep, extremely mocking bow, complete with little flourishes of his hand and a swish of his hair, all of which made another chuckle burst from Merlin, though he tried his very hardest to look innocent when Arthur glanced at him. As he straightened up he reached into his pocket and withdrew a small, rather innocent looking stone from his pocket that might, possibly, have been called egg shaped if the person looking at it hadn't ever seen an egg.

Ever.

“That’s it?” he asked. Though the item resting in Gwaine's palm was vaguely familiar.

“Can’t you taste it?” Merlin asked, his mouth twisting in disgust. “It’s in the air, like metal and ash.”

“Yeah, not the nicest flavour in the world,” Gwaine agreed. Arthur looked between them, blinking in astonishment.

“You can taste magic?” he asked.

“Taste, smell," Merlin said with a shrug. "Most people can, at least a little. Can't you?"

“Apparently not,” Arthur said, straightening up.

“Really, because I thought-“ Merlin said. “Leon always could. Didn’t you know?”

“Leon can do this?” Arthur said.

“Uh yes… I mean, I think so,” Merlin told him. “He’d look at me sometimes, after I’d done magic, but I always managed to be by something magical, so I don’t think he ever really made the connection.”

"Don't worry about it, Prince Charming," Gwaine said, nodding at Arthur in what was probably meant to be a reassuring way. "Can't be perfect at everything, now, can we? Or anything, to be honest."

“Like you can talk." Arthur reached out to pick the rock out of Gwaine's hand. It was warm to the touch, and he didn't think it was only from Gwaine's body heat. "This seems familiar somehow."

“Have you seen one before?" Merlin asked. Arthur looked up from the stone to see the other two both watching him curiously.

“No, I don't think so." He glanced down again. "So what do we do with it?"

“Well,” Arthur said, “I think they know we have it now.”

“No,” Gwaine agreed, “that seems pretty undeniable.”

“So we can still find out who’s behind this, we don’t really need the stone anymore.”

“You think we should destroy it?” Merlin asked, looking down at the misshapen blob. Arthur hesitated. There was a part of him that wanted to know what it did. He wanted to know just what his father had died for.

“I think, if Freya was right, that we have to,” he said.

“All right then, let’s have a go.”

They tried everything: crushing it, burning it, magical spells of all sorts and types. Merlin must have spent a good couple of hours just staring at it, muttering spells that did nothing but accidentally set fire to the heavily starched hotel sheets.

“It’s no good,” Merlin said, throwing up his hands. “I’ve tried everything I can think of and I can’t even scratch it.”

“Are you sure you’ve tried everything?” Arthur asked. Merlin didn’t even glance at him, though Arthur would have expected a snappy come back of some sort.

“Everything. I’m out of ideas.” Arthur looked at him, and at the stone, and he sighed. He had to admit, he’d already known it would end up like this for the last hour or so, but he’d let Merlin keep on at it. He needed something to do.

“Then we’ll just have to do our best to keep it away from them,” he said. It didn’t sound like a good plan.

*

-

part 6

Paperlegends: Tinker, Tailor, Wizard, Spy, Part 4, (R)

definewisdom — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 21:57:56 GMT

part 3

-

Arthur wasn’t sure what he expected when Merlin said that they were going to see the dragon. It sounded like a euphemism for drug use, or something you’d say while skipping down a yellow brick road.

We’re off to see the dragon, the wonderful dragon of...

Well, there were definitely bricks.

There was a canal, down the way, just an ordinary looking thing, with thick green water and the odd milk bottle floating in it. Merlin led Arthur and Gwaine along the tow path, behind back gardens and blocked off car parks. Arthur wouldn’t have called it picturesque. They passed locks, boats moored to the side and the odd dog walker too, who nodded the abrupt ‘good morning’ which was social convention for strangers in situations like this. Arthur would nod back while Gwaine would actually speak, his mouth twisting into a grin. Merlin, ahead of them, would barely even look up, focussed as he was.

“I hope he’s still here,” he said to himself more than anyone.

“Does he move around a lot, then?” Arthur asked. The dragon was presumably a man then, a man with a bizarre nickname.

“When he feels like it,” Merlin said with a shrug. “He likes to be enigmatic.” Arthur could have said that the dragon wasn’t the only one, but he was skating on thin ice as it was, trailing behind Merlin. His side still hurt, and his legs twinged with pain, but he kept up the fast pace and embraced the aches and the stabs of pain because they were half of what was keeping him going.

There was a bridge up ahead, Victorian red-brick and the worse for wear. Obviously some of the local kids liked to mess around with spray paint down here, because it was covered in angular letters that Arthur couldn’t even begin to read, though he recognised the repetitive patterns of taggers.

“Here,” Merlin said, turning to him. “We’re here.”

“Lovely place,” Gwaine commented, “very welcoming. I especially like the air freshener.” Arthur wrinkled his nose as the same smell assaulted his own nostrils, the scent of urine clogging the air.

“Well, never say I don’t take you anywhere,” Merlin muttered. Arthur opened his mouth to reply, before realising the comment was most likely directed at Gwaine instead, so he turned away, avoiding Merlin’s eyes as they sought his out, staring across the canal to the other side of the bridge, where the arc of the bricks descended into the overgrown weeds and cracked concrete on the other side.

What he saw made him open his mouth in surprise. The graffiti spread on the sides of the bridge had about as much artistic merit as an obscene drawing doodled in the dirt on a white van, but rising out of the water on the other side of the bridge, in dark reds and purples, spread out as though reaching towards them, was one of the most amazing works of spray paint art he had ever seen. It was a dragon, wings open, mouth wide and filled with huge teeth. Every scale seemed to be done individually, and the reflections of light from the water made it look like it was moving, like its eyes, which were staring right out at Arthur, were really glittering.

He took a step back, eyes wide.

“Damn, that’s impressive,” Gwaine said, his voice hushed in awe. “How did they even reach the middle bit?”

Arthur looked again and saw that Gwaine was right, the dragon’s head was at the highest point of the bridge, almost, right over the middle of the canal, where it would be unreachable from either side.

“They must have been on a canal boat.”

“Not exactly,” Merlin said. A smile pulled at one side of his mouth and he reached out a hand to touch the wall closest to them. Arthur frowned in disgust, looking at the slimy wall. But Merlin didn’t even seem to notice, pressing his hand into the bricks and beginning to mutter words.

Arthur would never get used to this – seeing Merlin use magic so casually, watching his eyes turn gold. There was a difference between knowing a thing and seeing it in action. So he looked away again, but the only other places to look were at Gwaine or at the dragon, and neither of them seemed like a better option. In some sort of compromise he stared instead at the wall next to Merlin’s hand, where some enterprising person who liked to call himself ‘Banez’ or ‘RanFL’ had chosen to leave their mark.

There was a strange ripple in the brickwork, like a low budget special effect, where suddenly the very solid looking bridge seemed to become liquid, and perfect circles undulated out from where Merlin’s hand sat. Arthur didn’t stare in wonder or faint, he’d seen far more than enough magic not to do that, in fact the only thought that crossed his mind was ‘that’s a little cheesy, isn’t it?’

Merlin seemed to be pushing his hand into the stones.

“Sorry, I have to do this to give him his voice. The stones remember you see.” Arthur didn’t see, but the stones seemed to because, after Merlin’s last words had finished leaving his mouth, they lingered on, echoing, echoing. And then those words were joined by others, whispering in, a thousand voices, a thousand different snatches of conversation the bridge had heard.

Arthur stared at Gwaine and was grateful to find his own astonishment mirrored back at him. It was nice to know that he wasn’t alone in this, that Merlin hadn’t shared everything with Gwaine in the past four years.

It wasn’t a charitable thought, but Arthur was saved from following it up as the echoes became louder and coalesced into one voice, made up of the sounds of a thousand others.

“Warlock,” the voice said, and it echoed still longer.

“Uther Pendragon is dead,” Merlin said.

“All things end,” The dragon replied. Arthur looked up at it, and the image seemed to be moving, wings stretching and contracting, like it was waking up after a long sleep.

“He was murdered,” Merlin said again.

“He had many enemies,” the dragon replied.

“Yes, and one of them killed him and made it look like Arthur did it,” Merlin said. When Arthur darted a glance his way, he looked strained, and slightly angry. “Can you help me or not?”

“The circle will be made,” the dragon said.

“What circle?” Arthur asked. “What are you talking about? Does this have something to do with what they were looking for?”

“Uther Pendragon carried it close to his heart for years, but he never knew what he was carrying. And that was his downfall.”

“Is this supposed to make sense?” Arthur asked. Merlin sent him an exasperated look.

“Sometimes,” he admitted.

“You must seek the circle too, before it is complete,” the dragon said. “Your friend, the cursed one, has been touched by it.”

“Freya?” Merlin asked, his face suddenly shocked. “What’s she got to do with this? She wouldn’t harm anyone.”

“You twist my words, warlock. It was you who summoned me, you who sought me out. You should listen more carefully.”

“I’m listening, and your words were twisted already before I had anything to do with them,” Merlin called back.

“Do you think it’s alive?” Gwaine asked Arthur in a whisper.

“What do you mean?” Arthur asked back, “it’s a painting on a wall.”

“Yeah, but it’s magic, right?” Gwaine looked at the dragon thoughtfully. “If it’s alive, then it can die, and if it can die it can be threatened. We might be able to get it to give us a straight answer.

The paving slabs under their feet suddenly rose up, throwing Gwaine off balance and almost into the canal until Arthur caught him by the back of his jacket. There was a moment where they both teetered on the point of overbalancing, before Arthur managed to drag them both upright again.

“Okay, so not the best idea I’ve ever had,” Gwaine allowed, with a sideways nod of his head, as Arthur pulled him back upright.

“Sadly, it probably was,” Arthur said, earning himself a look of shock, followed by a broad grin.

The dragon roared, or perhaps a train was going over the bridge above. The ground beneath them seemed to shake and the roar went on longer than Arthur could have anticipated.

As it died away, they were left standing, stunned, on the tow path. A little way further down, Arthur could see a woman pushing a buggy. She didn’t look the slightest bit concerned.

“Listen very carefully, warlock,” the dragon said, the paint oozing down the wall, to the other side, the outspread wings folding into its body.

“Why?” Gwaine asked, Arthur, “will he say zis only vonce?” The dragon ignored him.

“The witches are moving. They will take the circle to the centre and if they succeed in that, you will have only one chance.”

“Take the circle to the centre?” Arthur echoed. The words were meaningless, just gobbledegook. He didn’t know why he had expected anything different. This was Merlin after all. Years of lying aside, the man couldn’t be that different from the Merlin he had known before, even with magic. It was a relief, if anything, to know that Merlin was just as clumsy and uniquely useless as ever. The hands that had never quite learnt how to fire a gun and the feet that had always tripped over themselves were still there, which was good to know.

The woman was closer now, and suddenly, as though resetting, the world shuddered back to normal. Merlin was just a man leaning against a wall and the dragon was... gone, replaced by bricks, green moss and the scrawl of people with too much time on their hands.

Arthur stared.

The woman walked past them, barely glancing up – you didn’t question three men hanging around under a bridge – and the wheels of the buggy whirred, one squeaking a little on every turn. That sound seemed ridiculously loud in the sudden quiet, and Arthur almost flinched every time it squealed around.

They waited until she had left, and the echoes of her footsteps had faded before they spoke again.

“Brilliant idea, Merlin,” Arthur said, recovering himself from his shock as best he could. He didn’t want to let on how the hair on his arms was still standing on end, or how he was still working to remember which way was up. “Ask the local artwork for advice.” Merlin made a face that Arthur could quite read.

“At least we got a lead,” Gwaine said, patting Arthur’s shoulder in what was presumably meant to be reassurance, but came across more patronising. Arthur pulled away. A lead? They had nothing except a list of cryptic statements and fear for their lives.

“We did?” Arthur asked, turning on Gwaine. “Was that before or after you almost got yourself thrown in the water? We didn’t even manage to ask it about Nimueh, about what connected her to my father.” Gwaine ignored him.

“Freya,” Gwaine said, turning to Merlin. “That’s the name you said – your friend, the cursed one. We should go and see her.”

Merlin’s face became guarded immediately, and Arthur wanted to snap at him that this wasn’t the time to hold back, that Arthur’s father was dead and Merlin wasn’t going to bloody well keep information from him that could save his life.

But Uther would have locked Merlin up, would have had the officers in the detention centre stick electrodes in his skull, and bars on all the windows. He would have read dry reports where Merlin was referred to as ‘the subject’ and not even flinched as he read description of procedures that should have been referred to as torture.

Torture. Arthur hadn’t really let himself think the word up until now, although it had swam around the edges of his consciousness. Ever since Merlin had left and Arthur’s life had been shaken to its core, he had tried to avoid the detention centre, skirting the issue where possible. Because every time he had passed its doors, he had thought ‘this is where they’ll put Merlin’.

He had hated Merlin for making him question that, and he had hated Merlin for making him hate himself a little bit every time he walked past those doors. And on the days when he had had to go in, and see the magic users they kept in there, he had gone out on those nights and got a little bit drunker than usual, until Leon had peeled him up off the pavement or the bar top and dragged him home.

So Arthur had no right to demand Merlin put everything on the line, and he bit down on his tongue. Whoever this Freya was, Merlin didn’t want to bring her in to things, which Arthur understood. But still...

“If she can help...” he said, letting the sentence fade, and holding Merlin’s eyes. Merlin could never stop himself from helping someone. Arthur had lost track of the number of times that he had put missions at risk for the sake of some poor hapless bystander. Not that Arthur was any better, but he had always been better equipped, and he had known what he was doing. Merlin had-

Merlin had been leading a double life, and he had never been as helpless as Arthur had imagined; he had always had his magic to fall back on.

It seemed that particular character trait of Merlin’s still ran true. It wasn’t an honourable thing to do. It was a horrible way to play on something he knew would make Merlin break.

“Perhaps I should talk to her alone,” Merlin said, hesitantly.

“No,” Arthur said, immediately, his voice echoed by Gwaine. Merlin’s eyes opened wide, looking at the two of them, in one of their rare moments of agreement.

“She’s not dangerous,” Merlin said, as earnest as Arthur had ever seen him. “But she’s not used to strangers, and if I take Uther Pendragon’s son to her then she might-- It’s not the best idea, alright?”

“She might not be dangerous,” Gwaine said, jumping in before Arthur could, “but someone killed Uther. And I never knew a man quite as paranoid as him. And someone killed that Nimueh woman too, and you said yourself that she was the most powerful magic user you know. If she – if Freya - is involved, then chances are that whoever got to them knows about her too. If you go alone you’re both in danger.”

“I can take care of myself!”

Arthur opened his mouth to say that Merlin couldn’t have taken care of a stick insect, but he shut it again, once again aware of how out of touch he was. Instead he said, “we’re going,” in a tone that brooked no arguments. “Three of us will be safer than one.”

“My mother used to tell me never to put all my eggs in one basket,” Merlin said, but there was a note of capitulation in his voice.

“If we’re in a basket, then it’s on its way to hell anyway,” Gwaine said. He straightened up. “You won’t leave me to Pendragon’s company will you? We’d kill each other in five minutes.”

Merlin sighed and nodded.

“Fine,” he said jerking his head to indicate that they should walk further down the path. Arthur and Gwaine followed him as they set off again. Merlin’s footsteps were less certain this time, but his speed didn’t drop.

*

Leon was pretending to type up a report on his computer when the call came in, idly tapping nonsense into his keyboard and switching between windows restlessly.

The office was centred round a main screen, which took up all of one wall. It displayed a screen saver most of the time, just the dragon that had become the Department logo, gold on a black background. But every now and then an alert would beep and the screen would switch to a map.

It was rigged up to a magical detector Gaius had designed years before, which could sense surges of magic and locate them. Most people in the office were used to the occasional beeping. Minor incidents only caused a single alert that lasted twenty seconds, and small teams were sent out to investigate, usually lower ranking officers or newbies.

Major alerts were louder and they lasted until someone switched it off manually. Serious incidents were similar to a fire alarm, and the screen would flash red.

This incident was small. It was just big enough to merit a team being sent to the address indicated, but nowhere near enough to warrant a high ranking officer.

But Leon was staring at the screen when the alert pinged and he needed, all of a sudden, to get out. So he stood up, grabbed his jacket, grabbed his jacket and called out to Elyan, who sat at the next desk over.

“We’ll take this one.” Elyan looked up at the screen, only dimly aware that the alert had even gone off. He looked confused, but he didn’t say anything. With Uther dead and Arthur gone, the Department was upside-down. Leon had the sneaking suspicion that Elyan wanted to get out almost as much as he himself did.

They were almost at building security when there were hurried footsteps behind them.

Leon turned to see Cedric, the Internal Affairs agent he had met the night before, standing behind them.

“I’m to go with you,” he said.

“It’s a routine alert,” Elyan said.

“I’m to go with you,” Cedric repeated. He stared at Leon for a moment, and Leon just stared back, fighting to keep his frustration down. “Agent Harris, if you refuse to co-operate…”

“Fine,” Leon said, ignoring the exasperation on Elyan’s face. It looked as though he wasn’t going to be able to get away from this in any way at all. “You can come, but remember that we’re the professionals. You do as we say, you do it immediately and you don’t ask questions. If we say run, then you run.”

“I thought you said that this was routine,” Cedric said, smirking.

“You can never be too careful,” Leon said. He noted the way Cedric’s Adam’s Apple bobbed as he swallowed, and the flash of fear that crossed his features. Good. Let the man be scared. It might actually do him some good.

*

Merlin was silent as he drove, staring straight ahead with a frown, and all of Gwaine’s attempts at conversation faded into nothing, not that he tried much after it was clear that Merlin wasn’t interested in keeping things light anymore.

Arthur had no idea where they were. The silence seemed to sink into him, soaking into his bones and sticking his lips together when he wanted to open them and ask questions he knew he wasn’t supposed to. They drove down country lanes, trees flashing past, and into the outskirts of a city. He watched shops, houses and cars, people walking around, and he turned the dragon’s words around in his head.

The car itself was run down, probably a good fifteen years old, if not older, with the slightly mouldering smell of damp and the accumulated sweat of half a dozen owners. Compared to Arthur’s own car, which he supposed had been strip searched by Internal Affairs by now, it looked about as attractive as a rusty tin can on wheels.

He was going to comment on it, opening his mouth to deliver some scathing comment or other, when he realised that Merlin didn’t have a Department salary anymore, he didn’t have a redundancy package or a pension. The only money he got was from the small bookshop he had managed to find work in, barely over minimum wage, and just about enough to pay his rent, bills and food.

Arthur glanced at Merlin out of the corner of his eye, looking more carefully than he had before, and it was clearer then. His cheekbones, which had always been prominent, were stark, his clothes were good quality, but faded and worn, with tiny holes in, if you looked closely.

He opened his mouth to say something else again, but found that no words came to him. There was no apology he could give for that, he had done what he had to do and Merlin had done… what he had to do.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Gwaine watching him from the backseat. His posture was casual, but his gaze was fixed and definite. Arthur swallowed and looked away, letting the matter drop.

Then, too soon and strangely, also after far too long, Merlin pulled the car into the kerb and turned to them, attempting a smile.

“We’re here,” he said unnecessarily. Usually Arthur would have made a comment about Merlin’s ability to state the obvious, but Merlin was pulled to breaking point right now, caught up in something that Arthur couldn’t quite understand. But he knew what it was to be stretched taut and thin like that. He knew it from the months following Merlin’s escape. The manhunt that followed – led by Arthur, with his father breathing down the back of his neck – had been a nightmare. Arthur had been leading two searches at once, one in public, which he doomed to fail in every way he could (he knew how Merlin’s mind worked, knew which way he’d run, magic or no magic) and one which he kept in private, looking in the hours of the night when he was supposed to be sleeping. He had run himself ragged, and he had felt like he was being pulled apart.

If there had been anything he could have done to stop that, then he would have done. But, with Merlin doing magic in front of half of the bloody Department, Arthur hadn’t had a choice.

There was a strange thud-clang noise and Arthur straightened, his body still on high alert, and he jerked his head around to see a black cat standing gracefully on the bonnet of the car, eying the three of them suspiciously.

Merlin sighed and opened the car door.

“Are you two coming?” he asked as he swung himself out. Arthur left it a moment before he followed, watching Merlin walk around to the front of the car.

They were in the middle of a nondescript sort of street, a row of red-brick terrace houses, facing straight onto the road. They looked like they had seen better days, boarded up windows and graffiti. There were weeds and rubbish. It looked like a street marked for demolition.

Merlin reached out a hand to stroke the cat with one finger. Arthur almost rolled his eyes; Merlin never could resist a furry animal.

“Merlin,” he called. “If you’ve quite finished petting the local wildlife. We do have something rather important we need to be doing.”

“I told you we’re here,” Merlin said, grinning at Arthur widely, suddenly amused. It was his practical joke expression, the one he always wore before doing something to Arthur that Arthur should have seen coming.

“And your friend?” Arthur asked, glancing around the abandoned street. Gwaine looked a little puzzled too, so it wasn’t just him out of the loop. That made Arthur feel a little less lost, but a whole lot more concerned.

“Right here,” Merlin said, still grinning. The cat purred deeply, pushing its head into Merlin’s hand. Arthur stared between Merlin and the animal for a moment, aware that his mouth was hanging open in astonishment.

“First we talk to a wall, and now to a cat?” Arthur asked incredulously. “What exactly is next on our list: a conversation with a dustbin?” Merlin glared at him and the cat looked at him with eyes that seemed to be cutting him down to size. Arthur stared back. He refused to be stared down by a cat.

“Ye of little faith,” Gwaine said, reaching out his own finger to the cat, who sniffed it delicately before turning back to Merlin. Gwaine chuckled under his breath. “Guess she doesn’t like me.” Merlin simply shrugged, looking a little uncomfortable. Then the cat leapt down off the bonnet of the car and ran off towards a house, darting through the swinging cat door before any of them could stop it.

“Oh dear,” Arthur said in the silence that followed. He was unable to keep the sarcasm from his voice. He was growing tired of cryptic clues and no answers. “Our lead seems to have run off, Merlin. Perhaps she saw a mouse.” Gwaine hissed between his teeth, but didn’t say anything. Arthur can tell that he wanted to stay out of this conversation. Merlin, on the other hand, was growing angrier.

“You’re still the biggest prat I’ve ever met,” he said. He paused, looking betrayed. That was an expression Arthur remembered well. “I shouldn’t have brought you here.”

“The only other choices were you or the Princess going off alone,” Gwaine provided, “And in the current circumstances I doubt either of those would have been wise.” Merlin looked like he was about to say something, but he bit his tongue and sighed deeply.

“Come on then,” he said, leading them to the house into which the cat had disappeared. The front door had been red at one point, but now the paint was peeling off in so many places, it looked more like an abstract work of art. There was a weed of some sort growing up from the front step.

As they reached the door, it swung open, revealing a slight, pretty girl, with dark hair and big eyes. She was looking at Merlin with a small smile.

“Hello,” she said. “I’ve been expecting you.” The words were barely out of her mouth before Merlin grinned and hugged her fiercely, causing both Arthur and Gwaine to blink in astonishment. “All of you,” she added as Merlin pulled away. She stepped back to let them in. “We need to be quick.”

“Why?” Merlin asked.

“We don’t have long,” she said. But she didn’t elaborate on that.

Arthur walked into the house and almost immediately wished that he hadn’t. It wasn’t a home, not really. The place had clearly been abandoned some years earlier and its current resident was a squatter. He looked at her again and took in the worn, torn jeans, and the ratty jumper that hung from her. So this was Freya, Arthur had to assume, the ‘cursed’ one. He wondered if that had anything to do with her choice of accommodation. He thought about asking for an official introduction, but remembered what Merlin had said about him being Uther Pendragon’s son, so he held his tongue.

The place smelt of mildew and disuse, the walls were stained and the only furniture was broken or constructed from cardboard boxes. Still, the four of them shuffled into what must have once been the living room and sat on what little there was.

“They’re coming for the stones,” Freya said, as though that should mean something to them, rather than just raising half a dozen more questions.

“What stones?” Arthur asked. If that was why his father had died, then that was what he needed to know. Freya turned to him.

“The dragon stones.”

“And they are?” Gwaine prompted.

“They’re a conduit,” Freya went on. She didn’t seem scared, not like Merlin had implied she would. She seemed perfectly at ease, smiling at the three of them, though her sleeves were wrapped around her hands, and when she sat down she curled her knees up to her chest.

“They’re also a legend,” Merlin said. “The dragon stones are just the stuff of fairy tales, aren’t they? Like the holy grail.”

“What makes you think the holy grail isn’t real?” Freya asked, her lips quirking slightly. Merlin smiled back, a secret, shared smile and Arthur’s stomach twisted horribly. The moment passed and Freya continued. “There are lots of things said about them: that they can channel magic into a person, or even redirect life itself, and turn back death.”

“They can raise the dead?” Arthur asked, his mouth falling open. Something slotted into place in his mind. His father, haunted by his mother’s death all these years, had hoarded magical artefacts and he had had one of these stones. Perhaps he had been looking for others. Of all the things that would make him steal from the Department and betray everything he ad worked for, there was only one that Arthur could believe. His father had been looking for a way to reverse death, and he would have gone to any lengths to find it, even magic. “Really?” Freya looked at him and smiled a little sadly.

“That’s what’s said,” she told him. “But no… nothing can do that.”

Arthur felt a wave of sudden sadness pass over him, almost drowning him. He had always seen his father as something untouchable, unknowable and completely solid, like a statue on top of a pedestal. But in that moment he saw him better than perhaps he ever had before, clutching desperately at straws, longing for something impossible, and never able to give up on a broken dream. It was pathetic, in a way, and it cut Arthur to his core. He swallowed the reaction down.

“The other thing you said, channelling magic into a person,” Merlin said, filling Arthur’s silence without even being asked. “They can give an ordinary person magic?”

“Another rumour,” Freya said. She paused, a little hesitantly. “I don’t know if it’s true. But everything I know about them suggests that’s more likely. I don’t know who’s coming for them, but I know that they’re coming. Nimueh had three of them.”

Arthur scowled, leaning backwards on his box and trying to ignore the way it bent worryingly under his weight. They were behind, chasing to catch up, and whoever had killed his father had at least four of the stones already. Out of how many? If there were only five, then Freya was the last person standing. They had to get that stone and use it to find whoever was after it.

“She was one of the most powerful of us and she was ripped apart like she was nothing,” Freya said. She looked lost.

“I’m not going to let them hurt you,” Merlin said with utter conviction. Arthur had to curse whoever had given Merlin such a naïve personality. Freya seemed to be of Arthur’s mind regarding Merlin’s statement, though, because she just smiled sadly.

“I have one of the stones,” she said. “It was given to me a long time ago, to be kept safe, and to mark me. It’s one of twelve, but all of them are needed for the ceremony.”

“So if we have the stone…” Arthur said, his interest caught by the idea. A plan was forming in his mind. He looked up to see whether the others were on the same page as him.

“Then we stop whatever it is they’re planning on doing,” Gwaine said.

“And we force them to come to us,” Arthur said. He couldn’t care less about some person who wanted magic for him or herself, but the chance to drag his father’s murderers into the light – the possibility of laying a trap for them – that was too good to pass up. There was an uncomfortable silence. The others did not seem as eager as he was.

“Yeah, make ourselves living targets,” Gwaine said, “sounds like a brilliant idea.”

“Keeping the stone safe is more important than you can know,” Freya said, cutting off the argument before it began. “Merlin, if the rumours are true then they could suck all of the magic out of the world, all of it.”

Arthur almost asked how that would be a bad thing, years of working on the other side of this divide not quite able to be smothered. But Gwaine caught his eye sharply, like he could see the thought in Arthur’s mind and Arthur bit his tongue.

“There’s something else,” Freya said slowly. “They’re going after the Department.”

“What do you know about the Department?” Arthur asked. He looked at Merlin suspiciously, wondering what he had been saying.

“I was arrested by them seven years ago,” Freya said. “I escaped.” She shot a look out of the corner of her eyes at Merlin and Arthur knew exactly what she meant by that.

“Of course you did,” he said.

“I heard something, I’m not sure about it, but you need to know.”

“What?” Arthur demanded. “What do I need to know?”

“Three days ago a warlock disappeared,” Freya said. “He had one of the stones too. But his house wasn’t wrecked like the others. I know someone who went to see him – to sort try and find out where he went, but instead of him they came across a witch placing a spell on it, dark magic, powerful. He hid, and heard something about luring the Department there, I don’t know why. It’s supposed to happen today.”

“You think this has something to do with the stones?” Gwaine asked. “Why would they go after the Department? They’ve already got what they want from Uther.”

“The more they throw the Department into chaos, the better,” Arthur said, reaching into his pocket for his mobile phone. “Something powerful would make people suspicious of another magical terrorist organisation. They’d start talking about the Avalon Council again.”

“We got rid of the Avalon Council,” Merlin said. “We took their headquarters, we got all of them.”

“There have been rumours of splinter groups,” Arthur said, “there always are. And if the magic they placed was as powerful as you say, and it killed enough agents, then a state of emergency would be declared in the Department. With my father dead, it would be chaos. They’d be torn between looking for me and looking for the terrorist group, they wouldn’t have the resources or the time to look into anything else.” He turned to Freya.

“What’s the address? I have to warn them.” He found Leon in his phonebook.

“Not on that, you don’t,” Gwaine said, snatching the phone out of his hand. “Do you know nothing about covering your tracks? You should have trashed that hours ago. Why do you even still have it on you?” He tossed the phone to Merlin, who concentrated on it for a second, his eyes flashing gold. Then wisps of smoke began to drift up from it and the stomach turning smell of burning filled the air.

“What are you-?” Arthur demanded.

“Saving your life,” Gwaine said. “You’re on the run now. This is our world.”

“If I don’t contact Leon then good people are going to die,” Arthur said, glaring at them both as best he could. “Good people who were your friends.”

“Use mine,” Freya said, handing him a phone. “The only people looking for me already know how to find me.” She held out a battered phone and Arthur took it, gratefully. “28 March Road. Don’t let them near it.”

Arthur entered Leon’s number from memory and lifted the phone to his ear, listening to it ring.

*
28 March Road was in a suburban area, half way down a cul-de-sac. The houses had front garden with clipped green lawns and neat, orderly borders. There were even net curtains. Leon shook his head at how very normal it looked. The ping was almost definitely nothing, just a kid with some latent ability slamming doors or something.

But they checked these things out for a reason and, with Internal Affairs hanging around in the form of Cedric, Leon wasn’t going to skip out on procedure. He performed the initial sweep of the perimeter, walking around as much of the house as he could. There were no obvious signs of illegal magical activity, no blood lines, runes or sigils. Just a normal house.

Leon's mobile rang when he was heading back to the car, Cedric making Elyan dawdle behind so he could ask him some question. He didn’t recognise the number.

“Hello?”

“Leon." The voice was almost as familiar as his own, and Leon had almost let the name Arthur slip past his lips before he remembered the man behind him and half turned just to check that Cedric had no idea that the man he was hunting was on the other end of the phone line.

“Yes," he said as calmly as he could. There were a thousand questions he couldn't ask.

“I didn’t-“ Arthur began.

“I’m aware of that,” Leon cut him off. “We're looking into it." He kept the 'sir' from the end of the sentence, just about.

“Good… good. Thank you," Arthur told him. "I can't tell you where I am, but I'm fine. I'm with... friends.”

“That's good to know," Leon said, selecting his words and his tone carefully, trying to sound as though he had no investment in this conversation at all. Light, he told his voice; still, he told his hands; steady, he told his voice.

“But we've got information," Arthur said. Leon heard another voice on the end of the line, muffled and vaguely petulant sounding. The tone was familiar. “Look. There’s going to be a call out today. 28 March Road. Not far from the office, and nothing major. It’ll be a trap.”

Leon looked up at the building in front of him. Just an ordinary suburban house with a bay window, flowers on the windowsill, though they seemed to be wilting.

“Any idea what kind?” he asked. The other voice came again and Leon’s eyebrows rose as he placed the familiarity. He swallowed, his heart thudding for a few seconds as he realised that this phone call was a tipping point. He drew in a breath and held up a hand, knowing that Elyan would take it as an indication to stop where he was.

“You’re already there, aren’t you?” Arthur asked, before telling the voice in the background to shut up. He swore and Leon’s mind echoed the sentiment. “Get out of there. It’s dark magic, something big. We don’t know what it’s set up to do, but my best bet is that it’ll kill you and anyone you’re with. They want to put the Department in a state of emergency."

“You’re sure?” he asked.

“Certain,” Arthur said.

“And you trust the source of this information?” he asked, knowing that Arthur would hear the rest of that question as well.

There was a pause before Arthur spoke, but when he did his voice was as steady as it had ever been, steadier than Leon had heard it in a while. “Yes.”

“Good. Thanks for the heads up. Pass on my gratitude," he said and, after a pause, "and tell him I say hello."

“I will.”

There were footsteps beside him and Leon turned to see Cedric walking up next to him.

“Why have we stopped?” Cedric asked. Leon gave him a polite ‘wait a second' smile and tried to look as though he was not having an illegal conversation with two fugitives from justice.

“I need to go. Will you be able to keep me updated?” He asked Arthur, keeping his eyes fixed on Cedric all the time.

“I’m not sure. I don't want to put you at any more risk than I have already..." Arthur replied

“Don’t worry about that,” Leon said, aware of Cedric’s eyes boring into the side of his face.

“If I can,” Arthur told him.

“Good. Thanks again.” Leon told him before ending the call.

“Why have we stopped?" Cedric asked again, not waiting for Leon to even get his phone back into his pocket.

“Standard procedure,” Leon told him, aware that Elyan was frowning at him. "We can't just go rushing in. These things can be difficult to predict. We should get the detection equipment from the car. He walked back down the path trying to stop Elyan from asking questions with a hard look.

“And that phone call,” Cedric asked.

“About something unrelated,” Leon told him, trying to make it sound as unimportant as possible.

“Not a personal matter, I hope.”

“No, of course not,” Leon assured him opening the boot and grabbing everything he could possibly find and handing it over to Elyan.

“What’s with the gear?” Elyan asked in a hiss, just low enough that Cedric wouldn’t be able to hear him.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Leon told him. He pulled on his own body armour, taking a deep breath.

“Who was on the phone?" Elyan asked, insistent.

“Later,” Leon assured him briefly before they closed the boot and Cedric could see them again. The man was staring at the pair of them with suspicion.

“That looks excessive. I thought you said that this was a routine call out,” Cedric commented. “That equipment doesn't look routine."

“And you go on a lot of call outs to magical events, do you?” Elyan asked, deflecting the intense gaze from Leon for a moment. “Why don't you just stay back here where it's safe and let the two of us do our job?"

Cedric retreats, suitably reticent for a man in a suit, Leon thinks a little viciously. And Elyan and Leon approached the door.

“So on a scale of one to ten, how bad a feeling do you have about this?” Elyan asked with forced cheer.

“Remember that rain of frogs in Wales?" Leon asked.

“The ones with the hallucinogenic mucus? Of course – most fun I’ve ever had in Cardiff. Right up to the part with the spiders… Or maybe including that. Why?”

“Worse.” Leon told him. Elyan nodded, suddenly serious. He separated out his own body armour and fastened himself into it. The things were another miracle of the R&D Centre. They somehow grounded the worst of magical blasts, Leon had never asked how. It might have something to do with the symbol on them, or maybe they were made of magical Kevlar. All that really mattered was that they worked. Wearing them meant that most magical blasts didn’t even make you stumble, but if someone was really trying to kill them, then it wouldn't do much more than making them die uncomfortable.

He lifted the portable detector gingerly, wondering what he was going to do about this. There was no reason for him to be worried. If he hadn't had that call from Arthur he would have gone up, knocked on the door and conducted this like any other minor incident. And he probably would have died.

And, according to the official line, he hadn't just received a call from Arthur.

He took a deep breath and pulled the long dagger from his belt. It was something that all agents carried. Guns were well and good, most of the time, but magic interfered with their mechanisms easily. A steel blade was the least vulnerable item they had ever found.

He reached out to touch the tip of the blade to the door and dropped it immediately as the metal corroded to black powder in front of his eyes. He wiped his hand reflexively against his jeans. It felt like it was crawling, like there were insects all over it, crawling backwards and forwards. God... god, he was going to dissolve.

He looked down in panic, but his hand was still there at the end of his arm, as flesh coloured and solid as ever. He wiped it off again, relief flooding him, though he couldn’t quite bring himself to take his eyes off it.

“Shit,” Elyan said.

“What’s the hold up?” Cedric called out.

“We're calling in back-up,” Elyan said, looking at the remains of the dagger lying on the doorstep. It looked diseased, like the metal had rotted if that were possible.

“Back up?” Cedric asked. "You said routine. If this is some sort of a-"

“While performing our routine checks,” Leon said, interrupting him, “we discovered something that was definitely not routine, which would be why the checks are routine in the first place.” He took a deep breath, twitching his fingers. They still felt tingly and itchy, though he assured himself it was all in his head. “We need back-up, which is routine for this sort of a situation.”

“If you’d touched the door,” Elyan said, under his breath. “How did you know?”

Leon didn’t want to think about what would have happened if he had touched the door. He didn’t want to imagine his own skin blackening like the metal.

“But that would have only taken one person out,” he said to himself, the thought coming suddenly. He grabbed Elyan’s arm and dragged him backwards. Arthur had said ‘and anyone you’re with’. Who would lay a trap like this to only take out one person?

He turned, pushing Elyan around roughly, and ran down the drive.

“Behind the car" he bellowed at Cedric, who just blinked at him like he was stupid. Leon was dimly aware of a woman walking her dog on the other side of the road stopping to stare at the mad people with the unmarked car. "Get down."

Leon and Elyan hadn't managed to stay alive for this long without being very good at getting the hell out of the way when something screwed itself up (which was fairly often). They managed to grab the outraged Cedric, dive behind the car and signal to the woman to run, Leon flashing a badge that looked very official, but had in fact been a gag gift from the office secret Santa a few years back. It was amazing how often that badge had helped.

Then-

- there was nothing. Nothing at all. Just silence interspersed with Cedric spluttering about unprofessional conduct and clear breach of policy and common decency.

Leon opened his mouth to tell Cedric that if he wanted to have them fired for saving his arse then he was more than welcome to try, when there was a sickening whine sound, and the world went blue.

The light was eerie, the sort of light that was used in horror films when the ghosts appeared. It shimmered, growing brighter and brighter. The whine rose in pitch and volume until it even drowned out the swear words that were pouring out of all three of their mouths.

Leon watched in horror as the gardens across the street rotted in front of his eyes. Everywhere the light touched was darkening and eroding – tarmac, cars, trees. The whine was suddenly accompanied by the sound of metal screeching as it reached its breaking point. The car at their backs shook and Leon wondered whether it was ever going to end, whether the three of them might sit there until the car rotted away completely and then the light could reach them too. But, just as the volume reached levels that had Leon trying to claw his ears off and he could see the blue right through his eyelids, it all stopped in a dizzying split second, leaving them in silence and darkness. Leon wondered for a strange moment whether he was dead, but the sensation of air filling his lungs as he breathed in, thick with the bitter smell of dark magic, kicked him out of that thought.

It was like the aftermath of an explosion – and Leon had been near to a few of those in his time – his ears were still full of the noise, even as an afterimage of the sound, and his eyes saw the world as though he was wearing sunglasses, the retina unable to cope with the overwhelming light that had come from before.

After reassuring himself that he was still alive, he reached out to pat Elyan on the arm, and was reassured to feel a confirming tap on his forearm in return.

He reached out for Cedric and his arm was whacked away, which at least proved that the man was still alive.

Leon sat there for a long second, breathing in and out, revelling in the fact that his lungs still worked, and waited for someone to decide what to do next.

The feeling of elated relief lasted right up until he realised that the person who was supposed to make that decision was him.

In the past it had always been Arthur who had picked them up after something had shaken them down to the core. It had always been Arthur who stood up first, or stuck his head round the edge of the building to see if their opponents were still standing. Leon had never even really thought about how insane the man had been until he realised that he was about to stand up and poke his head out from the only definite source of protection he had.

It was possible that whatever that had been, it was activated by movement. It was possible that there were a million new horrible things waiting for him.

But he levered himself up anyway, trying to look as casual as Arthur always had, and reminding himself that at least, if he died, Elyan would have a little longer to work out a plan.

He couldn’t quite keep his shoulders from tensing when he straightened, and the back of his neck had that horrible prickling feeling of being watched, but when he turned around there was nothing there but the house, and utter devastation.

“Well,” he said, his voice shaking. Though considering it sounded distant and echoey to him, the others probably couldn’t even hear it. "I guess we're walking back."

He left Elyan to deal with the gibbering Cedric. When he walked around the front of the car, he could see that half of it was gone. It looked like a cut-away drawing from a ‘how stuff works’ book, apart from the fact that, rather than clean lines, all the edges were ragged and black.

“Fuck…” he said with tremendous feeling, as he realised that, had the blue light lasted a few more seconds, then the last bit of the roof, the part that had left the passenger door window in shadow, would have been gone, leaving his head to the tender mercies of whatever that magic was.

His knees wanted to buckle, but he forced them to straighten and walked back to the other side where Elyan was dragging Cedric to his feet and patting him down.

"Well," Elyan said, his cheer sounding forced and brittle. "I'm awake now."

Leon laughed, the sensation a release of the energy that was piling up behind his mouth and in his limbs. Elyan joined him after a second, chuckling together until they couldn’t breathe properly for peals of relieved laughter. Cedric stared at them in disbelief, his mouth working in horrified fish circles.

They stayed like that until the back-up Elyan had remembered to ring for while Leon was checking the damage, came hurtling down the street and they were pulled back out of the radius of destruction, checked over by medics and told that they were lucky sons-of-bitches.

Leon was pounded on the back by Elyan repeatedly, who opened his mouth to tell everyone how he'd saved his life. Leon started to tell him to shut up when a car drew up that Leon recognised. The car Uther had always used for work. He straightened up, astonished, wondering for a second whether the past few days had been a hideous magic-induced dream, but when it pulled up the door opened and a woman stepped out, long blonde hair falling to her shoulders. She was beautiful in a way which made Leon wish that he had five inches of bulletproof glass between him and her. She headed towards him without even pausing.

“Morgause Treherne,” she said, holding out a hand to him. “I’ve been asked to step in to the breach while the Pendragon situation is sorted out.”

“Agent Leon Harris," he offered.

“Yes, I know," she said. There was something about her, Leon could feel it prickling up his spine and he breathed in through his nose, deliberately, trying not to let it show as he straightened his back. There was a metallic tinge to the air that clung to the insides of his nostrils. Magic. It might have just been from the curse, though. It might have… he inhaled again, more carefully, but the scent hadn’t changed. And he could remember having smelt the magic while the house was glowing; it had been bitter, acrid. But now it was different, less bitter, and softer. Morgause was smiling serenely still, and Leon let his face take on the familiar blank expression of someone greeting a superior. “I heard you had a close call."

“Yes ma’am."

“Well, I’m glad that you’re all okay. I expect a report on my desk as soon as you’ve had a chance.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“I don’t expect you to like me, Agent Harris. In fact, given everything that’s happened in the past twenty-four hours, I’d be surprised if you did,” she told him. “We're all in difficult positions right now. We just need to get on with the job at hand."

The only thing Leon could think was the word ‘Magic’ again and again, like there was a mouse or a hamster running around inside his brain squeaking it at him angrily. And all he could feel, other than that curious numbness of not quite having realised he was still alive, was a feeling of utter terror that this was all getting out of hand. He wished for the two millionth time that day that Arthur was standing next to him. He hated getting involved in the political side.

“Yes ma’am,” he said. At least those were words he didn’t have to think about.

*

“They tried to kill my men," Arthur growled, pacing the floor. "They are trying right now to kill my men. My men." It was easier to think about that than to think that maybe Leon was already dead somewhere.

“Yes,” Merlin said, unhelpfully, from his position on the kitchen counter.

“What would you know about it?” Arthur rounded on him, glaring.

“Arthur,” Gwaine’s voice was a low warning that Arthur was the only one there alone in the world right now. That rubbed him up the wrong way even further.

“And you!” he said, rounding on Gwaine instead, who smirked at him. Smirked! Leon and god knew who else were walking into the biggest fucking trap of their lives and Gwaine, who had used to call them friends, was smirking about it. “Why are you even here? We all know your idea of loyalty is buying a man a drink and ditching him for the hangover.”

Merlin protested somewhere to the side, but Arthur was in full flow now. All he could hear was the rushing in his ears and his own words spitting out of his mouth like dragon fire.

“You never were there for the clean-up. Why should you give a damn about them now when you never did before."

“I care,” Gwaine said, calm and level.

“You care. Really, Gwaine? You ran off - you left them to do this alone and you bloody know it. You fucking coward!" Arthur swung, wildly. His fist barely connected with Gwaine's shoulder as the other man ducked out of the way. Gwaine grabbed for him and pushed him forward into the wall Arthur's hip bones were digging right into it and Arthur was forced to push his elbow backwards until it connected with flesh and the pressure against his back released.

They went for each other, fists and knees. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t skilled and it had none of the discipline Arthur had been studying in from the moment he could walk. It was brutal. Arthur got a fist in his face, his teeth biting in to the soft flesh of the inside of his lips. It reminded him of scraps he had been in as a child, rolling around on the playground in defence of a football that someone else had already run off with.

Gwaine's shoulder collided with his stomach and sent them both crashing to the floor in a flail of arms and legs.

Then suddenly Arthur felt something tugging on the back of his shirt, dragging him away, and saw Gwaine being pulled in the opposite direction. Freya was watching them, looking nervous, Merlin stood next to her, face tight with anger. He drew in a deep breath and then let it out. As he did it, Arthur could feel the wounds from the night before again, aching, and the places where the bruises from Gwaine’s fists would show in a few hours.

“Fine, fine,” Merlin said with a tired voice. Arthur glanced at him and saw his hands extended, on reaching to each side, towards Arthur and Gwaine. His eyes were golden. “We get it. You both want to do something. Neither of you can. Now if you could grow up for a minute and use your brains rather than trying to knock them out of each other, then maybe we might actually be able to come up with a plan."

“I would have won,” Gwaine said.

“In your dreams.”

“Neither of you won!" Merlin yelled. The sudden noise made both of them look towards him like naughty schoolboys. "If I hadn't separated you, the only thing that would have happened is that the two of your would have wrecked Freya’s house, and pissed off one of our few allies.”

“Everything alright?” Freya asked a little uncertainly

“I’ve got it under control,” Merlin assured her.

“Okay,” she told them with a small worried smile.

“Now,” Merlin said, letting his hands drop. Arthur slumped as the force that had been holding him back disappeared. “Are you going to play nicely together, or do I have to put you in separate rooms?"

Arthur offered a reluctant hand, which Gwaine took, just as reluctantly. He tightened his hand as much as he dared, and received the same treatment in return.

“Great. Then perhaps we could get back to the problem at hand,” Merlin suggested. “We can’t do anything more about Leon. I’m sorry Arthur. But he’ll get through it, he’s smart and he’s good at his job.” Arthur nodded. “Freya, we need the stone. If we have it, then maybe they won’t come after you. You’ll be safer, and we can try to work out exactly what’s going on.”

“I’ll go and get it,” she said, looking for a long moment at Merlin. “You have to stop them from getting it.”

“I’ll come with you,” Gwaine volunteered, looking between Merlin and Arthur with the disconcerting shrewdness that he seemed to have developed in the last four years. He stood up, and gently led Freya out of the room with an arm around her shoulders before Merlin or Arthur could say anything.

Then it was just Arthur and Merlin. Awkwardness fell as the door closed behind the other two. It was the first time, really, that they had been alone since Arthur had fallen on top of Merlin on his doorstep and Arthur, who had resented Gwaine’s presence for the entire time, suddenly wished that he would come back.

He glanced at Merlin out of the corner of his eye, and found Merlin looking back at him. Their eyes caught and Arthur couldn’t tear his gaze away.

The word sorry hovered behind his teeth. But accusations and anger hovered just as close, and he seesawed between the two, unable to let either come out.

The silence just grew thicker, punctuated by the sounds of Freya and Gwaine moving about.

There was a sound outside, the sound of boots on tarmac.

There was a knock at the door.

Merlin and he shared a startled look.

“Jehovah’s Witnesses?” Merlin suggested.

“With our luck?” Arthur shot back. He was already on his feet, grabbing Merlin’s arm and pulling him up. “Is there a back way?”

“Gwaine and Freya are upstairs,” Merlin said.

“Not what I was asking,” Arthur told him. “Is there a back way?”

“They’ve got the stone.” Merlin said, looking at the stairs. Arthur held him in place.

“Back way?”

“Yes.”

“Use it,” Arthur told him. Merlin stared, mouth falling open, and rebellion chasing across his face.

“I’m not leaving any of you.”

“I’ll get Gwaine, Freya and the stone,” Arthur told him. “We’ll be fine.”

“I’m not-“ Merlin was cut off by the sound of shouting and the door splintering inwards.

“Well,” Arthur said, releasing Merlin and turning towards the noise, “at least none of us has exploded yet.”

There were people piling into the house, burly men dressed in almost identical bland clothes. They carried guns and, when one of them rounded the door to find Arthur and Merlin, Arthur looked into his eyes and saw that they were glazed and deadened.

“Thrall,” Merlin said. The word didn’t mean a lot to Arthur, but the next one did. “Duck.”

Arthur had been in enough fights in his life that there were some situations and words he responded to automatically. There were many variations on ‘duck’ hardwired into him and he didn’t even need to think before he reacted, hitting the floor.

Bullets flew over them and then they bounced away, deflected off an invisible shield.

“Better than Kevlar,” Merlin said as they crawled for the door to the hallway. “We have to get to Gwaine and Freya.”

“How long can you keep up that shield?” Arthur asked.

“A few minutes, as long as there aren’t too many…” They came into the hall and were confronted by the sight of over a dozen pairs of booted feet and looked up into the muzzles of just as many guns.

“How about that many?” Arthur asked, not optimistic.

“Might be pushing it,” Merlin said.

“Tactical retreat,” Arthur decided. Merlin looked completely scandalised.

“But the others,” Merlin insisted.

“Come on,” Gwaine’s voice cut through. They looked up to see him standing behind them. Arthur didn’t ask how he’d got there, but dragged Merlin to his feet and hauled him back towards Gwaine.

“We can’t just go,” Merlin protested. Arthur wanted to agree with him. The soldiers, thralls, whatever they were, had turned their attention to the stairs. Arthur followed their gaze to see Freya standing at the top.

“Can’t you… burn them up or something?” Arthur asked.

“Or stop time,” Gwaine suggested, “that would be useful.”

“Not with this much interference,” Merlin said, sounding a little helpless. “They’re thralls – they’re not people any more, they’re possessions – of whoever sent them. They’re practically soaked in magic, and it’s interfering with mine. I can’t do anything that affects them.”

“That’s exceptionally useless,” Arthur commented. He had a feeling that their grace period was drying up. The Thralls seemed to have come to some sort of conclusion. “No invisibility?”

“Not at the same time as the shield.”

Arthur contemplated that for a moment. If they turned invisible then it was entirely possible that the Thralls would just shoot indiscriminately and they’d been dead in seconds.

“Merlin,” Freya said. Merlin’s attention snapped to her. “Go.”

“I can’t just leave you-“ Merlin started.

“We can’t help her,” Gwaine said. It sounded as though the words hurt him to say, and Arthur could understand that. She seemed nice, as inadequate as that was.

“I can take care of myself,” Freya said. There was a sound unlike anything Arthur had ever heard before. If he had had to label it, he would have put it something between Velcro and the squelch of raw meat, and suddenly Freya wasn’t standing at the top of the stairs anymore, instead there was a huge black panther. He stared.

Gwaine grabbed them both as the Thralls opened fire, taking their shoulders and taking advantage of the fact that every gun was trained on the huge black panther to make their escape.

*

-

part 5

Paperlegends: Tinker, Tailor, Wizard, Spy, Part 3, (R)

definewisdom — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 21:52:52 GMT

part 2

-

The Research and Development Centre wasn’t a place that most members of the Department went. It was mostly underground, and the staff members were peculiar. It had earned the nickname of the Morgue back years before, though no one could quite remember how, and it was apt. There was a strange prickle that would run up your spine when you walked through the door, like someone walking over your grave, people said.

It was Gaius’ domain, and Uther Pendragon had never been seen to cross the threshold, which made it a curious place all by itself. Uther had been the sort of man to micromanage, but there had been something about the density of magical artefacts in that place that had made the man uncomfortable. He had ordered Gaius up to his office for all his reports and mostly allowed the place to chunter along at its own pace, which it had, quite merrily. If there was one part of the Department that wasn’t stuttering and stalling without the loss of their fearless leader, then it was R&D.

The basic thought behind its existence was ‘know thine enemy’. It had been started so that they could find non-magical ways to counter magical threats, but over the years, thanks to input from people higher up than even Uther Pendragon, it had expanded to finding ways to control magic for their own purposes.

It was the Research and Development Centre that had designed the anti-magical armour that the agents wore. Unicorn hair woven into them would repel a significant amount of magical attacks, and the Cross of Lorraine built into the design of the front was a powerful symbol of protection. But as well as protection and defence, they designed weaponry and any other gadgets they could think of. If you went down there on a regular basis, you learnt not to touch anything.

Gaius ruled over the whole sector with the strange sort of sharpness that appeared almost absent-minded. He was rumoured to be older than anyone in the world, among the younger agents. They said he’d found the secret of eternal life, back in the beginnings of the Department, and he couldn’t die. They also said that he had too much blackmail material on people high up in government to ever be retired.

Gaius himself didn’t much mind the rumours, they gave him some amusement. It was more honest to say that he was still there because no one else knew enough to take over, or they knew too much to want to.

The news of Uther’s death hadn’t taken long to filter through the Department, even to the basement levels of the Research and Development Centre, and work was subdued. Internal Affairs had already been down to ask Gaius how anyone could have got past the security system he had designed personally, and he had sent them away without telling them much of anything other than the fact he was busy.

His pet project was the generator. It stood in the centre of the main room, a series of hoops made from silver alloys, that were fixed to central struts, and surrounded by a complicated mesh of wiring and symbology that no one but him had a hope of understanding properly. It was intended to convert magical energy into electrical energy, but he hadn’t managed to get it working yet. He tinkered with it in his spare time.

He was poring over the diagrams for it when the door swung open.

Morgana swept in, looking efficient, controlled and overcome, all at the same time.

She was one of the few people who had never seemingly been unnerved by the cavernous and sub terrestrial Research Centre. She had known Gaius since she was a baby and she had searched him out on her first day working in the Department and seemed at home surrounded by the odds and ends that lived down there with him. So it wasn’t unusual for her to walk in like she owned the place, but today her presence wasn’t expected anywhere.

Gaius looked up as soon as she walked in.

“Gaius,” she said, crossing over to him. “Have you heard?”

He nodded gravely stepping away from the blue prints and resting a hand gently on her arm.

“They’re saying it was Arthur,” she said.

“I know, Morgana,” Gaius said. “They’ve been asking me questions.”

“Do you… Do you think it was?”

“Arthur?” Gaius asked, astonished. “Of course not! Arthur would never have dreamed of hurting his father.”

“But they had been arguing so much lately.”

“You know Arthur, Morgana. You know that he wouldn’t do anything like this.”

“I know, but it’s so terrible,” she sat on a stool pinched the bridge of her nose tightly, shutting her eyes. “What they’re saying. I can’t stop thinking about it. And it’s all just mixing together in my head.”

“You shouldn’t be here today,” Gaius said softly. “You should be taking the time off.”

“And stay at home? Alone?” she asked. “I prefer to be around people. I don’t want to be alone.”

“I’m sure we could find someone to take care of you,” Gaius said.

“With what happened, everyone’s so busy,” she sighed. “I came down here to get away from it all.”

“Of course, my dear,” Gaius said. “Would you like something to drink, or eat?”

“A cup of tea would be lovely, thank you,” she smiled at him, her face wan.

“I’ll go and see if I can find you some,” he nodded and headed to the small kitchen on the other side of the room.

He came back to find her staring at the blueprints intently.

“I don’t know how you make sense of half of this,” she said with a sigh, gratefully accepting the tea.

“I invented the annotation,” Gaius said. “It was worse in the beginning when we didn’t know what anything was at all, and no one knew how to write anything down. These days at least we agree on some things.” He looked at Morgana curiously.

“What does this even do?” she asked, “I see you working on it all the time.”

“Energy transfer,” Gaius said, slowly. “But you don’t want to hear about my tinkering, I’m sure.”

“I need to take my mind off things,” Morgana said, letting out a deep breath. “I can’t think about it anymore, Gaius, I can’t. I’ll go mad. Just… talk to me about something, anything, please?” Gaius opened his mouth to answer but there was a familiar rush of air as the door was pushed open again and they both turned to see Gwen standing there.

“Gaius?” she asked. “I’ve got some papers that you need to sign,”

“Put them on my desk, would you, please, Gwen,” Gaius said. She smiled and nodded before moving off. When she had moved to his desk, Gaius turned back to Morgana. “Where was I? Oh yes, this contraption. With oil running out, and global warming, the government’s looking at different sources of energy,” Gaius said.

“Like wind turbines?” Morgana asked.

“Precisely,” Gaius agreed, smiling a little. “I was asked to look into a way to convert magical energy into energy that we could use.”

“But where would you find a source of magic big enough to make that worthwhile?”

“You wouldn’t,” Gaius said, sighing, “but that’s the government for you. They don’t think things through. I’ve had to build in a magical conductor as well, to concentrate the magic. But it did present an interesting question. All energy can be converted, after all, so we must be able to convert magical energy somehow, mechanically, like magic users can convert it into kinetic energy, or light energy, or heat energy.”

“Does it work?”

“Not yet…” Gaius sighed. “It does conduct magical energy, and focus it, but I haven’t managed to get the conversion working yet. I really need to work with a magic user. But that’ll never happen.”

“And what about this?” Morgana asked, picking up a strange collection of tubing.

“Portable magical shield,” Gaius said. “Or it will be, when we can get it to work for more than a couple of seconds at a time. Gilli’s supposed to be working on that one. But he’s off sick today.”

“And this?” Morgana pointed to another device. But Gaius didn’t get a chance to answer because Gwen came up to them.

“Sorry to interrupt again, but there’s a memo about funding, it says urgent, and I need to you sign off on something.”

“Funding again,” Gaius said, shaking his head. “They tell me to do things and then they complain when I tell them how much it will cost. Sometimes I think that the government thinks we’ve got some sort of magical money tree down here.” He gave Morgana an apologetic look and rested a gentle hand on her arm. “I’m going to have to deal with this, feel free to stay and look around.”

“That’s fine, Gaius. I know that life must go on,” she smiled at Gwen who returned the expression tentatively.

“How are you, Morgana?” Gwen asked.

“As well as I can be, in the circumstances,” Morgana replied. “Gaius was just distracting me.”

“Sorry to interrupt.”

“Nonsense,” Morgana said before taking a sip of tea. “You have a job to do. I’ll manage a few minutes alone. And I know better than to touch anything.”

“I’ll be back in just a moment,” Gaius said, crossing over to the door of his small office and letting Gwen in. “Make yourself at home.”

“I will,” Morgana assured him.

*

The interview rooms in The Department were designed to be bland. Beige walls with no distinguishing features, a simple table and boring chairs. People being interrogated would have nothing to look at but the face of their questioner, and nothing to distract them or entertain. If you spent enough time in them, it was said, you would go made from the utter nothing of them.

Leon had sat in those rooms a thousand times before, and his mind had always been on getting to the truth. He had never realised how well the effect worked. The mind had nothing to focus on but why he was here. He had never been on this side of the table before.

On the other side was a man with slicked back grey hair and a smile that slipped on and off like a snake shedding its skin. He was perfectly still, which made Leon feel the need to fidget just to balance him out.

But he knew better than that. When a suspect fidgeted, you had him. Every flick of the fingers was a crack, and you could burrow into those cracks and break them apart from the inside out. So he quashed the need for movement and looked the man from Internal Affairs in the eye.

“My name is Aredian,” the man said, his voice as cold and still as the rest of him. He would have made a perfect mime, Leon thought, his mind scraping the barrel of inane, to try and distract himself.

“First name or last name,” he asked.

“You may call me Aredian,” Aredian said, and Leon knew that was as much of an answer as he was going to get. “You are Leon Harris?”

“Yes, sir,” Leon said. Short and sweet was the way, don’t give away anything more than you had to.”

“How would you describe your relationship with Uther Pendragon?” Aredian asked. Leon held his gaze.

“He was my superior.”

“Yes, but would you say that you had a close working relationship?”

“I am the second most senior agent in the organisation,” Leon said, emphasising the present tense, wherever Arthur was, as far as Leon was concerned, he was still at the top. “It’s to be expected that we worked together closely.”

“Yes, of course.” Aredian smiled his on-and-off smile. “His phone records indicate that you were among the people he contacted the most.”

“As I said, as a high ranking agent of the organisation, we had reason to speak quite often.”

“You dedication to your work is admirable,” Aredian told him in a voice that was clearly veiling mockery. “And Arthur Pendragon?”

“I had reason to speak to him as well.” Leon forced himself to relax his shoulders.

“Did you have a close working relationship?”

“We worked together.”

“Yes, I can see that.” One of Aredian’s hands moved with efficient, sharp movements to open the manila file in front of him before stilling completely again. “In the last four years, you have worked 76% of Arthur Pendragon’s assignments with him. The closest thing he has had to a partner since the regrettable incident with Mr Emrys.”

Leon bristled slightly. He couldn’t stop the straightening of his back at such a cavalier mention of something that had almost destroyed everything – and Arthur most of all.

“We are not partners. As we were the most senior agents, it made sense for us to be sent on more difficult tasks.” Leon’s eyes drifted over the beige for a second, but there really was nothing for his eyes to stick on and they slid back to Aredian’s face and his cold, glassy eyes, like mirrors or sheets of ice.

“Being so close to the Pendragons, did you notice any enmity between them?”

“No more than between any father and son,” Leon lied. He wouldn’t mention Uther’s raised voice, or Arthur’s outraged, despairing silences, punctuated by knuckles hitting walls as soon as he left his father’s sight. He wouldn’t ever mention the days he would notice Arthur staring at the pen that Merlin had given him in the office secret Santa and glaring at emails that came in showing his father’s name.

“Sadly patricide is not unheard of,” Aredian said. “You admit to working closely with Arthur Pendragon, but you didn’t have a hint of this?”

It was a trick question: say no and admit incompetence, say yes and admit culpability.

“No,” he said firmly, meeting Aredian’s eyes. “And if you believe Arthur Pendragon capable of killing his father, then you clearly never knew the man.”

“You believe he is innocent.”

“I know he is,” Leon said. He was showing his hand, wearing his loyalties for the world to see, but he had never been good at politics. “No family is perfect, but Arthur loved his father and he would rather have died himself than let his father die.”

“Your loyalty commends you,” Aredian said. “But even you have to admit that liquidating his funds and disappearing are hardly the actions of an innocent man.”

“They are the actions of a man who is being hunted down by the people who killed his father and framed him for the murder, though,” Leon replied, allowing his own smile to curve his lips. “If someone could get to Uther Pendragon, they could get to anyone.”

“I see you are one of life’s optimists.” Aredian said. “I can only hope that you’re proved right about Mr Pendragon’s innocence.” Leon tried not to flinch at the tone in his voice which clearly said that he hoped that Leon was proved anything but right, and he was going to make sure that that was true as well.

*

“God forbid that I ever claim to be the sensible one of the three of us,” Gwaine says under his breath, “but breaking into the house of a possible murderer when we’re wanted by the authorities and one of us is heavily medicated doesn’t seem the best idea we’ve ever had.”

“Remember that time in London, where you were ensorcelled to think you were a chipmunk?” Merlin asks.

“I never said it was the worst,” Gwaine hisses back, “I just said it’s not the best. And I made an excellent chipmunk.”

Arthur wishes they would shut up. The pain medication is wearing off and his side is beginning to ache again, just at the edge of unmanageable. He’s never really broken into a house before, either, not like this. It was always more official and always with the knowledge that he had the full backing of the British government.

Up until now he’s been innocent of all charges. In about three minutes he’s really going to be a criminal, rather than just an official criminal like he is at the moment. He glares at the fence they’re crouching next to.

“No one would ever mistake you for the sensible one,” he says back, as quietly as he can. “Anyone sensible would shut up.”

“Sorry for trying to lighten the atmosphere,” Gwaine says.

Arthur doesn’t really know what they’re waiting for. He’s just crouching down in some bushes. He can’t hear anyone on the road, or any cars even. He takes another moment anyway, just to pull himself together.

“Ready?” he asks. The other two nod, entirely serious for once.

They walked up to the back door and Arthur starts fishing in his pockets for the paperclips he always keeps in there, just in case.

The just in case in his mind had never really involved lock-picking though, and he’s never understood how it works, but from what he’s seen you just jiggle the unfolded paperclip around a little and the door magically opens.

The door magically opens.

And Arthur’s still got his hand in his pocket. He turns to Merlin who’s pushing it open; there’s an unrepentant expression on his face.

“We’re trespassing, and wanted by the police,” Merlin says, like he didn’t just use magic without batting an eyelid. “We’d have been here all day if I’d let you do it. Now let’s go inside where nosy suburban neighbours can’t see us breaking and entering.”

Gwaine chuckles and walks between the two of them and into the house. Merlin follows him and Arthur stands dumbfounded and outraged for a second before dragging his hand out of his pockets and following them. He’s not used to this new, competent Merlin, and he doesn’t like being wrong-footed like that. He’s a mess, physically and mentally, he knows that, but every time he feels like he’s doing something, Merlin’s the one to do it right. His irritation is mounting, but he’s not sure what he can do about it because it’s not like Merlin’s doing it on purpose.

Well, he’s probably not doing it on purpose.

Gwaine sits down at Catrina’s dining table and checks out a bottle of what looks like very expensive alcohol. He lets out a low whistle between his teeth.

“The divorce settlement must have been good,” he says, before opening the bottle.

“Gwaine!” Arthur says, as loudly as he dares. Gwaine swigs a mouthful without a sign of guilt.

Even Merlin’s rolling his eyes as Gwaine makes an exaggerated ‘ah’ sound, looking at the bottle with respect.

“We’re not here to get drunk,” Arthur tells him, “we’re here to find out if-“

There is the simultaneously terrifying and welcome sound of footsteps on the stairs.

“Jonas, is that you?”

It’s been more than six years, but Arthur hasn’t forgotten the sound of his ex-stepmother’s voice, clear as ever. He freezes, Gwaine freezes and Merlin starts to twitch.

“Jonas?”

The footsteps get closer and Arthur makes the decision without even thinking about it. If there is the slightest chance that Catrina is involved in his father’s death then Arthur will get it out of her. He slips to flatten himself against the wall by the door.

He’s just in time, a few seconds later the door creaks open and Catrina sees Gwaine sitting at her table.

“Who on earth are you?” she demands, stepping forwards.

“Me?” Gwaine asks, putting his feet up on the table. “Don’t mind me, I’m just the distraction.”

“Distraction from what?” That’s Arthur’s cue. He grabs her by the shoulder and pins her to the wall, his forearm across her throat, pushing her up so she can’t get enough leverage to kick him.

“Hello,” he says. She glares at him, and then over his shoulder when Merlin comes to stand behind him. There’s something in her face when she looks at Merlin which is a little too vicious for just knowing him in passing, as Arthur had thought she did. He files it away as a question to ask later. “You’ve heard, I assume?”

“Yes,” Catrina croaks around his arm, “I heard.” She smirks a little. “Can’t say I’m sorry that Daddy’s dead, though.”

“Why were you outside his building that night?” Arthur asks.

“We had something to discuss,” Catrina tells him.

“He wanted nothing more to do with you,” Arthur growls, pushing his arm into her neck a little more, just enough to make her gasp for breath that isn’t there, before relaxing it so she can talk again.

“It didn’t matter what he wanted,” she tells him, “we had business to discuss.” Her tongue caresses the word ‘business’ like it’s something obscene, and Arthur sees red at the innuendo. His father’s dead, and she won’t even show respect now. He wants to hit her, but he knows if he starts hitting something right now, he won’t stop.

“He’d never do business to you, not after what you tried to do?”

“A little fraud and espionage are all par for the course when you’re as rich as Uther Pendragon. He never had the moral standards you thought, you know. He was as mercenary as the rest of us.”

“Don’t talk about him like that.” Arthur’s not an idiot. He knows his father wasn’t perfect. He’s been realising it more and more ever since, well, ever since Merlin really. But he wasn’t corrupt, he tried to do the right thing.

“Sorry, I forgot what a little Daddy’s boy you were.”

“So,” Arthur says again, “are you going to tell me what you were there for, or not?”

“Like I said, I was there to do business,” Catrina frowned. “I didn’t kill him if that’s what you’re thinking. Why kill the goose that lays the golden eggs?”

“What do you mean?”

“Arthur,” Merlin said quietly from behind them. “I don’t think she did it, perhaps we should just go.”

“What, have you read her mind?” he asked. “Can you do that? Slip into people’s minds and find out what they’re thinking?”

“No.” Merlin’s hand came to rest on Arthur’s bicep, just in his line of vision. It was warm and strangely nonintrusive, and it made him relax his hold on Catrina, though he didn’t let her go. “I’m just not sure you want to hear what she has to say.”

“I want to find who killed my father,” Arthur said. “I need to know, Merlin.”

“Merlin,” Gwaine called from the table. “He’s a big boy, I’m sure he can take it.”

Arthur had the uncomfortable feeling of being left out of the loop again. The other two seemed to already know what Catrina was going to say and they seemed to know that he wasn’t going to like it.

“What did you mean about him being the golden goose?” he asked.

“Well, I suppose there’s no point in keeping it secret now he’s dead,” Catrina said, with an air of unconcern that just served to raise Arthur’s temperature to boiling point. “Uther was paying me, a nice little monthly allowance, in return I kept quiet about some of his less… legal activities in the Department. It’s amazing the sort of things a man will tell you in bed.”

Arthur felt sick. He gritted his teeth and tried to keep himself under control, but the smug look on her face was almost too much.

“My father never broke the law,” he said.

“It’s amazing what children will never know about their parents,” Catrina said. “Your father’s been establishing a private collection for years.”

“What sort of a collection?” Merlin asked.

“Magical artefacts,” Catrina told them. “All those little items that he’s been supposedly reporting to the crown and keeping in the vaults under the headquarters. Well, he hasn’t. There’s a hidden safe in his flat with quite a nice little selection in it. And there’s all sorts of paperwork that just goes missing.”

“I don’t believe you,” Arthur growled.

“Your belief has no control over whether it’s true or not,” Catrina said, shrugging as much as she could with Arthur holding her against the wall. “But Daddy had his own agenda. Why do you think he hunted down magic users all these years?”

“To protect the British people,” Arthur said, though it came out sounding far more like a question than he would have liked.

“So naïve,” Catrina said. “He was looking for something. I don’t know what, but he was definitely looking for something.”

“Did he find it?” Gwaine asked.

“Maybe,” Catrina shrugged. “He never told me if he did. But then, after our divorce, why would he?”

She looked between the three of them.

“So, as you can see. Your father was worth far more to me alive than dead. If I wanted to kill someone it would be your little warlock here,” she glared at Merlin. “If he hadn’t interfered then I might have…”

What she might have done was cut off when Arthur punched her in the face. He didn’t even know he was doing it until it was already done. She reeled back against the wall and Arthur let her go in shock. Merlin had stepped forward and he could see the expression of shock on his face in the corner of his eye.

“I’m not the only one who was there that night,” Catrina said. “And I’m the least of your worries.”

Arthur looked at her, refusing to feel guilty for the mark on her face.

“Who else?” he asked.

“Someone I’d avoid if I were you,” Catrina said.

“Who?” Merlin asked, stepping forwards again. His hand was half raised and Arthur saw Catrina’s eyes dart to it in alarm.

“An old friend of yours, I believe,” Catrina said. “Nimueh.”

Merlin’s face blanched, Arthur could see the blood drain out of it as though someone had pulled the plug, and Merlin was pale on a good day.

“What was she doing there?”

“I saw her walking out just before your handsome prince here tried to jump under my car,” Catrina said. “She looked angry. I didn’t want to talk to her in that mood.”

There was a sound from the front of the house: a car pulling into the drive.

“That’ll be Jonas,” Catrina told them.

“If you’re lying,” Arthur said, putting as much threat into his voice as he could. She just smiled.

“Run along,” she told him. “You’ve got better things to do.”

It was Gwaine who pulled both him and Merlin from the room with firm tugs to their shoulders, and they made it out through the back fence again and to their car, Arthur trying to decide what it was he was supposed to feel.

“My father,” he started as Gwaine turned the key in the ignition.

“Your father,” Gwaine echoed. “Whatever else he was, he was your father. Whatever she said, that doesn’t stop that from being true. He was the man you knew, but not just that man.”

Arthur looked at Gwaine’s profile in astonishment, nodding.

“You’re right,” he said. “It’s just… I thought…”

“We should never look too carefully at our parents,” Gwaine said. “Believe me. It ends badly.”

Arthur sort of wanted to ask what that meant, but there was a tight tone to Gwaine’s voice that he’d never heard before and that was enough warning. This topic was off limits and Gwaine had said all he wanted to on the subject. So Arthur changed subject as quickly as he could.

“So,” he said turning round to look at Merlin in the back seat, who looked like Christmas had been stolen. “Nimueh.”

“I was hoping we wouldn’t have to go after her,” Merlin said softly.

“Where is she?” Arthur asked.

“I don’t know,” Merlin admitted. “But I can find out. I know some people who might know some people.”

“A magical underground grapevine,” Arthur said. “Why am I not reassured?”

“Most magic users aren’t like her,” Merlin said. “Most magic users aren’t like the ones you come across back in the Department. Most of us just keep our heads down and try not to get noticed. Life’s difficult enough without drawing attention to yourself. But it’s nice, to know other people like you, to know you’re not going mad.”

Arthur had never thought about that before: how people learnt that they had magic. He had always imagined that they sought it out. But that couldn’t be right, could it? What would it be like to realise that you were actually a freak? What would you think if things just started happening around you? Had Merlin been through that? Had Merlin thought that he was going mad?

Asking a question like that would assume a relationship with Merlin that he had forfeited years ago, though.

“Okay, so what’s our next move?”

“My house again,” Merlin said. “I’ll make some calls and we can have lunch. Then… then I’ll go and talk to Nimueh.”

“Then we’ll go and talk to Nimueh,” Gwaine corrected. Merlin didn’t answer.

*

NImueh’s house was far from what Arthur had imagined from the evil sorceress Merlin’s vague descriptions had depicted. It was a normal suburban house, complete with net curtains and laminate flooring.

It was also quiet, eerily so. There was an unnatural hush over the place.

“Shouldn’t there be birds… or next door’s music, or something?” Arthur asked, as they got out of the car in the driveway (Merlin had laughed when he suggested approaching the building like they had Catrina’s – ‘she’ll know,’ he’d said ‘she always knows’ , and Arthur was carefully not asking about that.)

“Dark magic,” Merlin said, sniffing a little at the air and shivering. “You can always feel it when this much has been used.” Arthur felt a strange tingling sensation up his spine at those words. He wasn’t sure if he was ‘feeling’ the magic like Merlin seemed to be, or if it was just the way Merlin’s voice sounded hollow, and a little frightened.

“We’ve faced dark magic before,” Arthur said, setting his shoulders.

“It never felt like this,” Gwaine commented.

“It was never this powerful,” Merlin agreed. “This is… serious.”

“So Nimueh might be behind those doors, cooking up something truly horrendous to throw at us?” Gwaine asked. “Nice to know.”

Arthur looked at the ordinary front door.

“I don’t think she wants to kill us,” Merlin said with a shrug. “Uther yes, but she never really tried to kill us.”

“She’s tried to kill my father before?” Arthur asked. Merlin winced.

“Only once or twice.”

“Another thing you didn’t think I needed to know.”

“If I’d told you then you would have done something stupid,” Merlin said with a tired shrug. “I really didn’t feel like working through that with you.”

“I would have arrested her and taken her to the detention centre,” Arthur said, growling. He didn’t know why, he didn’t think that magic automatically gave people super-hearing, but he was mostly whispering.

“Like I said,” Merlin said with a shrug.

“So, potential black magic wielding murderous person,” Gwaine interrupted, before Arthur could ask how following procedure and putting a dangerous criminal behind bars constituted ‘something stupid’. “How do you two want to handle this? I was thinking we’d try a frontal attack.”

“You want to knock on the evil sorceress’s front door?” Arthur asked.

“Precisely,” Gwaine agreed. “When dealing with people who could reduce you to charred cinders with a flick of their hand, I find it’s always a good idea to be polite.”

“If Arthur thought that, then he’d be treating me with a lot more respect,” Merlin said a little suddenly. Arthur opened his mouth to protest but then the words caught in his throat as he realised what Merlin was implying. He wasn’t just admitting to having magic, he was admitting to having enough magic to kill Arthur where he stood without even raising a sweat.

Arthur stared at one of Merlin’s over-large ears for a long moment, thoughts catching and then swirling away. There was one, determined, but buried right at the back which started with ‘what if…’ and continued on a path that made Arthur want to throw up.

What if… he’d run to the very person that he was trying to find. Merlin certainly had motive, and if he was as powerful as Gwaine and he seemed to think he was, then he had more than the capability. And Arthur had gone running to him, like a lamb to the-

Merlin turned to him, noticing him staring, and grinned a little hesitantly. He looked like an idiot, a genuine, lovely, idiot.

But he’d lied about the magic.

Arthur turned away, unable to return the smile with even a slight curve of his own lips, and he found himself staring right at Gwaine, who looked far too perceptive for Arthur’s peace of mind. There was a hard look in his eyes, and Arthur only managed to hold his gaze by remembering a time when he had given the orders in this… relationship, whatever it was.

“Fine,” Merlin said, when the silence stretched among them for too long. “Knocking on the door it is.”

So they knocked and then they knocked again for good measure, very loudly. Arthur had perfected the art of obnoxious knocking. It had been part of his passive aggressive teenage rebellion.

No one answered.

Merlin’s mouth was twisted in concern and Arthur felt a slight flip of jealousy in his heart. Who was this Nimueh anyway? How did Merlin know her? He pushed the thought and the feeling down, yelling inwardly at himself. In the same five minutes he could mentally accuse Merlin of murdering his father and be jealous of him. His head was a mess.

“There’s something wrong,” Merlin said after another moment. “The magic residue, and her not answering. Something feels off.”

“I’d offer to break the door down, but you’ve got the breaking part of our breaking and entering career down,” Gwaine said. Merlin managed a half smile, but he was still distracted, looking into the middle distance and seeing something that Arthur couldn’t. He waved a hand at the lock and Arthur could hear the click as the pins fell into place.

“Wait here,” Merlin said. Arthur opened his eyes to say something about not being a civilian, but Merlin’s eyes were glowing golden. He remembered that here, he really was the civilian. This was Merlin’s territory and there was nothing he could do to help him. So he nodded and kept his thoughts to himself, watching Gwaine do the same.

Merlin walked in, and Arthur waited. He pushed open the first door he came to,

“Shit,” Merlin said. Arthur could only see his back, but the slump of his shoulders told all the story that Arthur needed to know.

Gwaine squeezed past to lean around Merlin and look in.

“Now I'm wishing I hadn't eaten breakfast," he said, grimacing as he turned back to Arthur. "Apparently someone wanted to redecorate."

"NImueh?” Arthur asked. He was almost grateful that Gwaine and Merlin were blocking the doorway now. He already knew what they were looking at; he'd seen it before, after all.

“That depends on whether you’re asking if she’s the decorator or the decoration,” Gwaine said. Merlin elbowed him, looking a little sick. “The place is a tip," Gwaine commented, Merlin apparently lost for words, still staring at something Arthur couldn't see.

“That happens when someone’s exploded,” Arthur said. Gwaine looked back at him, obviously realising that Arthur knew exactly what they were looking at.

“I don’t mean like that,” Gwaine said. “I mean the actual room. The drawers have been turfed out. There’s not a single book still on the shelves.” He paused. “Come in and close the door,” he said, “you really don’t want one of the neighbours noticing you here. Not with this.”

Arthur stepped inside and closed the door.

“They must have been looking for something,” Arthur said. Merlin turned to look at him.

“What?" Gwaine asked. He was watching Arthur more shrewdly than Arthur would have ever believed him capable of, and Arthur deliberately met his gaze, defiant.

"Whatever it is, we should see if we can find something about it,” Arthur said. Gwaine continued just staring at him. “Just because someone's looked for something doesn't mean they found it."

“Firstly, if we don’t know what we’re looking for in the first place, then it’s unlikely we’ll find it, even if who ever was here first overlooked it. Secondly, it's a mess in there," Gwaine said. His voice was almost gentle, like he knew exactly what was going through Arthur's mind. "And this time I do mean Nimueh. It wouldn't be a pleasant experience."

“I’m not going to faint at the sight of a little blood," Arthur assured him, straightening. He barged past and stepped around Merlin into the living room.

It had once been a nice room, in a grandparently sort of way. There were pictures on the mantelpiece of people who looked entirely normal. Happy smiling couples, a selection of young women who looked about seventeen. One of them even looked familiar. There wasn't a single picture that wasn't stained red.

Nimueh had been sitting in the armchair when whoever it was had killed her, and some of her body was still there, but splattered out like a brilliant red butterfly. Arthur wanted to throw up, run away and just hide somewhere. His brain flashed back to his father, almost identical, and the nausea rose again.

He should move, should step forward or back, should make a comment to Merlin and Gwaine to show that he wasn’t scared by this. But his mouth wouldn’t open and his tongue felt stiff and heavy and too big for his mouth. His feet were rooted to the spot.

He found himself staring at a picture on top of the television, Two girls sitting next to each other on the steps of some ruined castle. They each had an arm slung over the other’s shoulders and they were grinning at the camera. One dark haired, one blonde and both about thirteen. From what little was left of Nimueh’s body, he could tell that the dark-haired girl was her, he didn’t know her companion, though she looked familiar. Like someone from a memory of a dream. She was pale, blonde and beautiful, but her legs were immersed in the sticky red of blood.

“Arthur." Merlin's voice was soft and barely there, like he was scared to speak to Arthur too loudly in case he'd take fright and run away, or break, perhaps. But it was the impetus Arthur needed.

“Well come on Merlin,” he said, “can’t your magic at least narrow down the search?"

*

Gwaine was right, the search was unpleasant. But it wasn’t the blood, or Nimueh’s dead eyes staring at them that made it so. It was the way they went through her life. Boxes of bills and bank statements. Shelves of souvenir tat from holidays that she must have been on, or heard about. It took hours and then, after all of that, Arthur sat on the stairs and gazed sightlessly at the front door. They still hadn't found anything that shouted ‘I’m suspicious and magical’. Arthur gave up. This was too much, too far.

“You okay?” Gwaine asked from the top of the stairs, making Arthur jump a little. He hadn’t heard the man coming.

“I’m fine,” Arthur told him, about to stand up as he heard footsteps on the stairs behind him.

“Right, because God forbid that Arthur Pendragon should ever actually feel something."

“Gwaine," Arthur said, wearily, "you need to learn when to keep your mouth shut."

“And perhaps you need to learn when to open yours,” Gwaine told him, squeezing past Arthur down the last few steps before using his knees to budge Arthur over until there was enough space to sit down. “My father had an open casket funeral," he said, as nonchalantly as if he were discussing the weather. "I was five years old and I had nightmares for three straight months. Woke up screaming."

“I’m not five years old,” Arthur pointed out.

“He was still your father." They sat in silence for a moment and Arthur wondered what had happened to Merlin, whether he’d fallen through a wardrobe into Narnia, or whether he had accidentally locked himself in the bathroom. But the seconds drew out and Merlin still didn't appear and Gwaine didn't say anything, or look at him, and Arthur couldn't quite help the pull of the silence.

“It was… like that,” Arthur said, lifting a finger to point at the living room door. “It was just like that."

Out of the corner of his eye he caught Gwaine opening his mouth as though to say something and suddenly he couldn't take it anymore, couldn't talk about it or think about it, couldn't see his father's head staring at him when he closed his eyes, couldn't feel the warmth of his blood against his fingers when he wasn't paying attention. He jerked to his feet abruptly, before he was even conscious that he wanted to move and nodded to himself.

“Right, we should be moving on,” he said, turning to Gwaine and offering his hand. It was a peace offering of sorts and when Gwaine took it, smiling a little, he hoped that it had been accepted. “Where on earth did Merlin get to? That man could get lost in an empty room, I swear to God.”

“Here,” Merlin said, appearing at the top of the stairs like he had been waiting for Arthur and Gwaine to finish their conversation. “I’ll need to put everything back the way it was, though. Don’t want the police to find evidence that you did this one too."

He jogged down the stairs to them and held out his hands. Arthur couldn’t make out the words he muttered, but suddenly the house seemed to be changing of its own volition. Objects moved around to their original positions, doors opened and closed as though moved by unseen winds and the blood that Arthur had barely noticed on the carpet - their footprints - and on the walls and banisters - their fingerprints - removed itself.

“And I don’t think we want anyone to see us sneaking out the back way, either,” Gwaine commented.

“Right, invisibility,” Merlin said, “I can do that."

“I thought you said that it didn’t work,” Arthur commented, remembering that morning’s conversation. Merlin looked a little uncomfortable.

“I said that you couldn’t do it for very long… I should be able to handle getting us out to the road.”

“Don’t worry,” Gwaine said, patting him on the arm, “If it goes horribly wrong and he accidentally erases us from existence, at least you won’t be a wanted fugitive anymore.”

Arthur wasn’t reassured.

*

It turned out that Merlin could do invisibility, though Arthur didn’t find the skill a pleasant one.

It was unnerving to feel things without being able to see your hands, or to watch things move themselves as Merlin or Gwaine opened doors. They made it out to the car before Merlin’s spell sputtered and failed.

“So,” Arthur said, when he was sitting in the passenger seat (having shoved Merlin into the back, but been unable to grab the keys from Gwaine) and blessedly visible again. “Who’s next on the list?"

Merlin bit at his lip.

“Look,” he said after a moment. “Nimueh was serious. She knew magic, better than anyone else I ever met. She might have been sort of evil, but she was also sort of powerful, and that someone could do that to her, without her even putting up a fight…”

“Not to mention the fact that someone killed both her and Uther,” Gwaine said after a moment. “That raises some interesting questions in my mind.”

Arthur stared at him again, his heart suddenly feeling like lead. He hadn’t made the connection, not properly. Someone had killed both Nimueh and Uther, which meant that there was some link between them, and probably not just that Nimueh wanted Uther dead. There was something else, and someone was looking for something.

“Do you think it’s connected to what they were looking for?” Merlin asked, echoing Arthur’s thoughts.”

“My father… his place had been turned over as well,” he said after a moment. He hadn’t really thought about it at the time, his eyes stuck on the thing that had once been Uther Pendragon, but he remembered things cluttering the floor. “I thought maybe they tried to make it look like a robbery.”

“Then why explode them?” Gwaine asked, “why not just whack them around the head with a handy blunt object? No… the death was personal, but the robbery was an actual robbery as well.”

“We need help,” Merlin said. “I don’t know where to start against someone like this.”

“And who do you suggest we ask for help?” Arthur asked. “Santa Claus? The tooth fairy?”

“No,” Merlin said, his face not even cracking a smile at Arthur’s appalling excuse for humour. Usually he liked mocking Arthur’s poor attempts at jokes. “We’re going to see the dragon.”

*

-

part 4

PaperLegends: Tinker, Tailor, Wizard, Spy, Part 2, (R)

definewisdom — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 21:45:32 GMT

part 1

-

There was blood everywhere. That was the first thing that Leon noticed. Blood splattered on the walls and ceiling, pooling on the floor in big sticky puddles. And in the middle of it all, with the skin of his chest peeled open, his ribs cracked and broken outwards, was Uther Pendragon, Head of the Department.

His face hadn’t been touched at all, left clear of blemish, staring sightlessly at the tracks of his own blood on the ceiling. Whoever had done this had not wanted the man’s identity to be in question.

Leon was proud that he managed to swallow the bile down before he was forced to vomit at the sight (and the smell – god the metallic stench of blood burning up his nostrils and clinging to the back of his throat).

“It seems that he and his son had one argument too many,” the dark-suited official told him. Leon had hated the man on sight. Cedric he had introduced himself as. Cedric the civil servant, a paper pusher or a spy, a man who went around in a pristine grey suit and a perfectly starched white shirt and left all the hard work to other people before taking the credit for it.

“Arthur wouldn’t do this.” Leon told him with utter certainty.

“His fingerprints are everywhere... even in the blood, sir,” Cedric told him, gesturing to a distinct set of bloody fingerprints on the table. “His gun was found on the table, and at preliminary examination, it matches the bullets removed from the body.”

“He was shot?” Leon asked in disbelief. Cedric gestured to Uther’s legs with a pencil.

“In the kneecaps, presumably to stop him from running away while the rest of the torture was administered.” Leon really, really wanted to leave right then. He had woken up to the insistent ringing of his phone, jerked from a rather pleasant dream and one of the best nights’ sleep he had had in ages, to be told that this had happened. He hadn’t had time to breathe, hardly.

Though he was grateful that he hadn’t had time for his coffee, because it was best that he had nothing in his stomach right now. And after that, he probably would never have been able to drink coffee again.

“ -and they had been heard to have an argument earlier in the evening.” Cedric was still talking and Leon forced himself to listen. More ridiculous evidence against Arthur of all people.

“They were family, they argued,” he said abruptly, before Cedric could frame Arthur for this further. “All I’ve heard from you so far is circumstantial evidence. Unless you have something more substantial than that.”

“Not all the blood appears to belong to the elder Mr Pendragon,” Cedric said with a sour, on-and-off smile, which slipped past more quickly than the rush of a river. “Some short blond hairs have been found on the body and there’s DNA under the fingernails…” they both looked down at Uther’s mangled hands, “…the fingernails that remain, anyway. We’ve sent it off to be examined, but I suspect that it belongs to Mr Arthur Pendragon.”

“You suspect,” Leon said with contempt. “Suspicions aren’t proof. Everything you’ve said so far just makes me wonder whether Arthur’s another victim.”

“He was seen leaving the building covered in blood.” Cedric said. His lips twitched in a smile that never quite made it to his face properly. It was clear that he’d been leaving that piece of evidence until last deliberately. “Alone.”

Leon paused, his mind coming up blank. He looked down at the body in front of him, slaughtered in what would have had to be a fit of rage. The Arthur he knew would never have...

It hadn’t been Arthur.

Next to him, seemingly unruffled by the carnage, Cedric lifted a file he had been holding and flipped it open.

“I also understand that the younger Mr Pendragon had recently been the subject of many reports of inappropriate conduct, a couple of drunk and disorderlies. He was on probation after beating up a fellow government agent...”

“That wasn’t –“ Leon started. He remembered the incident, remembered pulling Arthur off Valiant as he tried to pound the man’s face into the floor. “He was provoked.”

“Well, provoked or not, incidents like that might indicate an unstable personality.”

Leon couldn’t imagine anyone more stable than Arthur and he said as much. Cedric smiled again, on, off, easy and meaningless.

“I’m sure he was very charming, and I understand that you’d been working with the boy for a while, but we have to face facts – no matter how difficult it might be. Arthur Pendragon must be assumed as armed and dangerous and a traitor to the government and the organisation. Our priority at this point is to bring him in. To help him, you understand. The young man must be very disturbed.”

“Yes, I suppose he must be,” Leon agreed. He didn’t doubt that Arthur had been there, and seeing your father like this, that would mess with anyone’s head.

“And given that this was an inside job – the knowledge of the codes to Mr Pendragon’s home and so on, I’m afraid we’ll have to assign someone from the outside to stand as Interim head of department.” Leon nodded dumbly before his mind caught up. An Interim Commander? As the most senior of the agents, with Arthur missing, the command should have fallen to him. He turned to look at Cedric, alarm bells ringing in his head.

“Who?”

“A Miss... Morgause, I believe. She’s being brought up to speed as we speak.”

*

The Department for the Investigation and Control of Magical Phenomena, almost always referred to simply as “The Department” to avoid alarm, ridicule and discovery was one of the British government’s best kept secrets.

Uther Pendragon had been its founding member and a legend in all parts of the government that knew of its existence. He had been a ranking official in the security services when he had come across definitive proof of the existence of magic just over twenty years ago, and he had been tasked to investigate and control its use since then. It had been a way of shutting him up back then, shoving him off into a side project that no one had expected to amount to anything. But he had made it more than that, built the Department from the ground up and, in the end, he had made them listen to him.

The Department had gradually grown from a couple of men in the basement of Thames House to an independent body with almost a hundred agents. Uther Pendragon had stayed at its head through its entire life. Its agents were brought from wherever they could be found. Some were civil servants that showed abilities that Uther thought might come in useful, others came, like he himself, from the security services, and others from organisations like the police force and the army

Leon Harris had been in the army for three years when he had encountered something that he had, at the time, been unable to categorise. His handling of the situation had drawn Uther’s attention and less than a month after the incident, Leon had found himself reporting to a building in the heart of London and being given a lecture on the existence of magic. He had found the place bizarre, but strangely brilliant to work in. The job was a curious mix of police, spy and soldier, which appealed to the five year old boy that lived somewhere in his head.

Not that they were just a sort of magical police force, The Department also had a large group of scientists on call, led by Gaius an old colleague of Uther’s. They tried to come up with scientific solutions to magical problems and investigated the magic that was discovered, trying to find ways to use it to help.

Once they had started looking for magic, it seemed to pop up around every corner. Groups of magic users popped up out of the shadows. They were mostly harmless, but some of them dangerous. And things had developed into a sort of equilibrium.

Everything had been fine, going on as usual, until just under four years ago when everything had gone to hell. But they had begun to calm down again, recently. Nothing would ever be quite the same, but different had been becoming normal.

And now Uther was dead, Arthur was on the run and Leon had no one to trust.

*

Arthur winced as he swung himself off the sofa. Sleeping there hadn’t done any good for his joints, and his injuries burnt like they’d been set alight.

He went looking for Merlin and came across something that made him wish he hadn’t woken up for another ten minutes.

Gwaine and Merlin were across the hall in a small study/dining room. The door was ajar, and Arthur followed the sound of murmured voices without understanding what they were saying.

He was already looking into the room, before he realised.

The moment was private, a gateway into somewhere that Arthur never wanted to go, and he never meant to. He pushed the door open a little more, and he could hear Gwaine and Merlin’s voices clearly, from where they stood by the opposite wall. Gwaine’s voice was soft and warm, and it made Arthur pause. He had never heard Gwaine like that before. He had only ever heard the bluster and the jokes, louder, brighter and brasher.

He could see them now, as well, standing too close – not that either of them had ever respected personal space. This was more than a casual arm around the shoulders though. They stood facing each other, so close that they must practically have been breathing each other’s breath.

“We don’t have to do this,” Gwaine was saying. “We could leave.”

“You don’t mean that,” Merlin replied, his voice just as soft, but affectionate and amused. And that was a tone of voice Arthur had heard before, directed at him. It made his heart leap a little in his chest to hear it used for someone else.

“I want you to know that you have the option.”

“You’re not going to leave Arthur in the lurch,” Merlin said. He sounded so certain of something Arthur doubted to the bottom of his soul.

“I’m not going to leave you,” Gwaine said. His face was firm, seriousness etched into the line between his eyes.

Arthur wanted to step backwards, but he didn’t know whether the movement of closing the door would draw Gwaine’s attention, half turned towards it as he was. He was torn. A part of him didn’t want to watch this scene, intimate and stolen as it was, it hit too close to home, reminding him of what he lost. Another part of him, the part Arthur always tried to listen to, wanted to leave because he knew he shouldn’t listen to this. And a third (slightly masochistic, Arthur admitted to himself) part of him, needed to watch, just to see it all in its glory – Merlin and Gwaine.

“He needs us,” Merlin said, like it was that simple, like Arthur had never pointed a gun between his eyes.

“Alright then,” Gwaine said. He leaned closer and pressed a kiss to Merlin’s forehead, making Arthur swallow a breath, his hand jerking upwards slightly. “We’ll save the damsel in distress, then. I always fancied myself a knight in shining armour.” Merlin laughed, though Arthur could tell it was a bit forced.

“You’d be a crap knight,” he said. “You never liked rules.”

“I’d be a knight errant, and I’d be brilliant at it.”

Arthur backed up, as silently as he could, when Merlin’s hand came up to push at Gwaine’s shoulder. He walked back across the hall until he came to the bottom of the stairs, and then, making enough noise to be heard, he walked to the door again and pushed it open.

The space between Merlin and Gwaine had grown, and Merlin looked a little guilty, though Arthur couldn’t tell whether that was directed at him or Gwaine.

“Okay then,” he said. “Breakfast.”

*

If Gwaine was exactly like Arthur remembered him, Merlin was more so. He still had the strange look of confusion, the cheeky way of talking back and then opening his eyes wide in fake innocence. He still smiled too easily and too wide. He still made Arthur wish to turn time back just to try and make things between them better.

“I’m so sorry,” Merlin told him as Arthur gave a terse description of discovering his father’s body and what had happened next, the twist of confusion in his memory when he recalled the people who had been there, waiting for him. Merlin looked genuinely upset. “I wish I could have-”

“Well you couldn’t,” Arthur cut him off. “But they... they said that they’d make it seem like I did it.”

“Who?”

“If I knew, do you think I’d be in this mess?” Arthur asked, sarcasm coming more easily than explanations. He was too raw for this conversation. The image of his father was still in his mind and Merlin being so close and so earnest was too near to something he wanted. Something he’d thrown out of his own reach forever.

He glanced over to the door again. Gwaine seemed to have developed a thing for leaning against doorframes. He was propped there like a bloody bouncer, or a body guard, watching Arthur with barely contained suspicion.

“Were they wearing masks?” Merlin asked.

“No,” Arthur said, “some sort of magical cover, I could see their faces, I just couldn’t... it was like seeing someone you met once at a party, or someone you don’t know on a train. I couldn’t recognise them, even if I wanted to. Now I can’t even remember if they were male or female.”

“I know the spell,” Merlin agreed with a hum. Arthur almost asked him if he’d ever used it. Had he ever snuck in somewhere, magically anonymous? Had he used that particular trick to evade the Department’s security? He bit his tongue at the last moment.

“Do you remember how many of them there were, at least?” Gwaine asked.

“Three,” Arthur answered immediately. “Magic or not, I can still count.”

“Unless one of them was invisible.”

“I doubt it,” Merlin provided, not seeming to notice the tension. “That’s too difficult to hold for very long.”

“Right,” Gwaine said, suddenly nodding as though something had occurred to him, as though he remembered that fact. Arthur swallowed a surge of jealousy that Gwaine knew that, that he and Merlin were sharing a quick grin at some joint reminiscence. But that wasn’t his right anymore, was it? None of this was. He was nothing now but the interloper. He was the third person, stuck on the outside.

He wondered if he always had been. Had Gwaine known about the magic back before that incident four years ago? Had they laughed about it behind his back? It was something he had thought about before. Gwaine hadn’t been frozen by shock like the others. He’d stepped forward almost immediately. Was he just better at adapting to circumstances, or had he known? Arthur wanted to know the answer to that, it had plagued him, and at the same time he didn’t want to know. He didn’t want proof that he’d always been the third wheel.

“I need to find out who they were, I need to get them.” He said, in lieu of anything better to say.

“And how do you propose to do that?” Merlin asked and Arthur had to avoid his eyes, stare down at the floor, which was becoming an old friend. Arthur hadn’t really thought clearly when he went to Merlin’s. He had managed to hold it together long enough to use public transport, keeping the worst of the bleeding under control. The only thought in his mind had been ‘Merlin can help’. He knew that it had been a foolish thought. But back when he and Merlin had been on the same side – or when Arthur had thought they were on the same side – Merlin had always come through. Alone, scared and light headed from blood loss and shock, he had reverted to what his mind considered default. It wasn’t until he had woken up this morning that he had thought about how Merlin could make it better. And his answer hadn’t made him happy. He lifted his eyes to Merlin’s, guiltily. Though whether the guilt was directed at Merlin or his father, he couldn’t say.

“Oh, so now you want me to do magic? Four years ago I was the evil traitor, completely untrustworthy and a freak who had betrayed everything, and now you’re here begging me to help.”

The strangest thing about it, Arthur would always remember, was that there was no bite to Merlin’s words. They were amused rather than vindictive. Even as they echoed the things Arthur had said to him – the things he had had to say, to make Merlin run, to make him never look back. It was like Merlin didn’t even care anymore.

“This was a bad idea,” Arthur said, struggling to his feet and walking to the door, but Gwaine blocked his way.

“Apparently his highness has had another few knocks on the head in the past few years,” Gwaine commented over Arthur’s shoulder to Merlin.

“He always was an idiot,” Merlin said with a long suffering sigh. “Sit down, Arthur. You wouldn’t get half way down the street like that and you know it.”

“I’m more than capable of catching a bus, Merlin.”

“And you’re also more than capable of passing out in one,” Merlin said.

“Sit down,” Gwaine added, glaring Arthur down. His lips were quirking with amusement he was trying to hide.

“Get out of my way,” Arthur said.

“Make me.”

The scuffle lasted less than twenty seconds, and Arthur found himself breathing in that same carpet he had been staring at.

“You always did go down easily.”

“If I weren’t injured…” Arthur said, wincing at the pain that was stabbing through his chest.

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” Gwaine said with a laugh, “if you weren’t injured you’d have kicked my arse all over the room. When you’re your old self again we’ll see about that, will we?”

“Fuck off,” Arthur muttered, bucking in an attempt to throw Gwaine off his back.

“Sorry, you’re just so comfortable,” Gwaine said, poking his knee into Arthur’s back a little more firmly for a second before slowly moving off and offering Arthur a hand to help him up.

Pride was one thing, but Arthur knew that he wouldn’t be able to stand up properly without help, so he took the offered hand and was lifted easily off the floor and then clapped firmly on the shoulder.

“You don’t change, do you?” Gwaine said, echoing Arthur’s own thoughts to exactly that he had to laugh.

The tension seemed to dissipate then, and Arthur almost felt as though the last four years had never happened. For a moment, it was just the three of them messing around.

Then Merlin broke the silence and everything came crashing back.

“So, first we need to get you healed up a bit more,” Merlin said. “Then we’ll have to work out who wanted your father dead.”

The words ‘who didn’t’ floated around in Arthur’s head, but they didn’t make it to his mouth.

“You can heal me with magic?” he asked. “Why didn’t you do that before?” Merlin stared at him as though he was crazy.

“Considering what you said the last time I did magic in front of you, I didn’t think that would be the best idea,” Merlin said. “They weren’t serious enough to kill you, you know. And… I’m not that good at healing magic.”

Arthur raised an eyebrow, trying to convey the fact that he thought that the idea of Merlin being ‘good’ at anything was unlikely. That earned him a glare from Merlin.

“Fine, well, you have my permission.”

*

The halls of the Department were virtually silent when Leon found his way back in, but they were still active. It was earlier than most people usually arrived in the mornings, other than the night shift, but it seemed that news had spread, and everyone had been brought in, or made their way in uninvited.

And by everyone, Leon really meant everyone.

Morgana looked frantic when Leon bumped into her, but she had always been conscious of her appearance and her mascara was still perfect, but the eyes behind it were wide and troubled. She plucked at the sleeve of his jacket with one hand, pulling him to one side of the corridor. He went without process. He hadn’t even thought of her, and he cursed himself that he had been so carried away with his own troubles that he hadn’t considered Morgana, who had just lost everything.

“Is it true?” she asked. “They’re saying that Arthur... that Arthur...”

Leon hadn’t been prepared for this when he came in. But then, he hadn’t been prepared to see his boss’s body splashed across the interior décor last night, so why he was expecting things to be like he expected, he didn’t know. But now he was faced with Morgana - and shouldn’t someone have been taking care of her? – asking him questions.

“Of course he didn’t,” Leon said. He was trying to be reassuring, but she didn’t look like he was helping. “That’s what they’re saying. But we both know that Arthur would never do anything like that.”

“You don’t think so?”

“Of course not,” Leon stared at her. She looked uncertain, which shook him severely. The idea that Morgana could possibly think Arthur capable of the vicious savagery that would have been necessary to do that to his own father, or anyone come to that, was almost more than he could take. His voice rose above the more appropriate whisper, and he saw faces turn towards them. He lowered his voice again quickly. “You know Arthur. You know that he loves – loved – Uther.”

“They were arguing so much recently,” Morgana said. Her hands twisted together.

“Families argue,” Leon said, echoing the words that are insistent in his head. She still didn’t look convinced. He wanted to point out that she herself had seldom been in a room with Uther for more than a few minutes without having an argument of some kind, or Arthur for that matter. It didn’t mean she didn’t love them. But he had enough piece of mind not to mention it.

“And Arthur was so... strange recently,” Morgana continued, “with the drinking. Sometimes he’d say things to me.” She looked around furtively, as though she was about to say something incriminating.

“Things like what?” Leon asked, copying her movement to look around and check that no one was listening. Morgana was clearly distraught, and nothing she said right now could be taken as evidence. But that didn’t mean that Internal Affairs, wherever they were, wouldn’t try.

“Like how much he hated Uther,” she said, slowly. The words dropped to a low murmur. In spite of that, they still hit Leon like a bullet, the shock chilling him to the core “How much he wanted to be free. What if this was how he did it?”

“Arthur would never,” Leon said. The icy feeling of shock began to wear away, replaced by burning anger. “He and Uther had their problems but Arthur would have sooner shot himself than kill his father. You know that, Morgana. Stop it!” She stared at him, clearly a little taken back, swallowing. She too glanced around, composing herself. He paused, realising what he’d just said and wanting to apologise at the same time as just wanting to get away. She paused to recompose herself and he took the moment to rein in his anger.

“You’re right, of course, Leon,” she said. “I don’t know why I’m being so silly.”

“You’re upset,” he said, more gently. “You just lost... It’s a difficult time. You should go home and get some rest. I can drive you if you want.” He put his hand into his pocket, checking his car keys were still there, but Morgana shook her head.

“No, no, it’s alright.” She leaned up to kiss his cheek. “I’ll find my own way. Thank you, for listening to me. I know I must sound like a terrible person.”

“It’s fine,” Leon assured her. “Any time.” She nodded, smiling a brittle smile and began to walk away. Leon turned to go himself but was stopped by Morgana’s voice calling him back.

“Leon.” He turned immediately, without even thinking about it. She was looking back at him, caught, as though she was about to say something she didn’t want to.

“Yes?”

“I know you’re Arthur’s friend,” she said slowly. “But we both know that he’s been different since… you know.” Leon nodded tightly, acknowledging the name that was very carefully not being spoken, as it hadn’t been spoken in the Department in four years. “Don’t let your loyalty to him get in the way of what you know is right. We need you.” Leon stared at her for a moment. He knew that his face must be showing his shock clearly, but he couldn’t help it. Morgana had known Arthur since they were children and the way she was speaking. She was practically asking him to help the witch hunt.

“You’re talking like you think Arthur did this,” Leon said, carefully. She didn’t deny it. “I won’t get in the way of the investigation,” he said, “but Arthur didn’t do this. I will prove that, even if I’m the only person on his side, I will fight his corner.”

“Your loyalty is commendable,” Morgana said, her expression tightening in some indefinable way. “I hope it doesn’t lead you into trouble.”

A young woman Leon didn’t recognise caught hold of his arm.

“Excuse me, Agent Harris?” she said. “You’re expected in interview room 4. Mr Aredian would like to speak with you.”

“I’ll be right there,” he said, turning back to say a last few words to Morgana, but when he looked up, she had gone. Leon sighed and turned back to the woman with as much of a smile as he could muster. She looked a little scared. He wondered what he must look like, with barely an hour of sleep under his belt, and worry settling with discomfort on his shoulders.

“Interview room four,” he said, she nodded mutely then half ran off, back into the main office room. Leon turned in the opposite direction, to go to Interview Room Four. There was no need to ask what this would be about. He’d heard the name Aredian before. Internal Affairs. They were worse than vultures.

*

Merlin hadn’t been lying about not being that good at healing. The wounds closed up a little, as though they were a few days older, enough that Arthur could move normally, but the pain was still intense, and Merlin had to send Gwaine to fish around in his medicine cabinet for the strongest painkillers he had available. Arthur swallowed a couple followed by a glass of water and sat, feeling a little light-headed at the table.

Breakfast was passed in near silence, the tension returning and making everything strained. Arthur didn’t know how to start a conversation. There didn’t seem to be anything available to say. Merlin, across from him would open his mouth and then shut it again, thinking the better of whatever it was he wanted to say. Gwaine seemed to have devoted his entire body to eating Merlin out of house and home. Not that there was much of a home. The furniture was all old, clearly having come with the house. The few possessions Merlin had were either in the bag by the door, or in boxes, apart from the books in the front room and Merlin’s computer. They seemed to be his only pretences at normality. But then, Arthur didn’t suppose that normal had come close to how Merlin had been living in the past few years.

Finally, after Merlin had looked up for the fortieth time, opening his mouth, only to close it and look away when Arthur waited for him to speak, Arthur’s patience ran out.

“Spit it out, Merlin,” he said.

“Uh,” Merlin said, eloquent as ever. “I was just thinking we should decide who wanted your father dead. If we’re going to work out who killed him, we’re going to need some suspects aren’t we?”

Arthur froze, food half way to his mouth. He had a horrific moment where all he could smell was blood, and all he could see was his father’s face. Shit, shit, shit. He had thought he was handling it. He forced a deep breath of air into his lungs, and concentrated on his heart beat, which seemed to be echoing though his entire body.

He knew that Merlin and Gwaine were watching him with concern and it pricked at his pride. He wasn’t going to fall apart.

“Right,” he said. “Suspects. Rogue magic users, I suppose.”

“Right,” Merlin said slowly, looking unconvinced. He flicked a finger, almost absently, and a piece of paper and a pen flew onto the table, dropping down in front of him. “You know there aren’t as many of them as you think, don’t you?”

“It had to be someone magical,” Arthur said, remembering the gore. “You said yourself that the memory problem I’m having is a spell. And what they did…” he paused.

“Okay,” Merlin said. “I was just saying. This seems personal, you know. Killing him and framing you.” Gwaine nodded and hummed his agreement. Arthur felt a little sick for a moment. Personal. Someone he knew had done this.

“Well, do you have any suggestions?” Arthur asked, a little more bitterly than he had intended.

“It needs to be someone who could get into your father’s suite without being flagged by security,” Merlin pointed out.

“Couldn’t they have got in magically?” Arthur asked. Merlin flushed and Gwaine chuckled slightly. Arthur glanced between them.

“You used to live with your father,” Gwaine said, smirking.

“Yes,” Arthur agreed. In the first few years of working at the Department, he had lived with Uther. It had been easier than looking for his own place. But what that had to do with people magically entering the flat he had no idea.

“I might have… put up some precautions,” Merlin said. His eyes met Arthur’s tentatively.

“Magical precautions?” Arthur asked.

“Yes.”

Arthur stared at him for a long moment before blinking in disbelief. He had known that Merlin’s grasp of survival was tenuous at best, but surely there must have been some things that he knew were tantamount to suicide.

“You cast magic on Uther Pendragon’s personal flat?” he asked, incredulous. Merlin shrugged.

“Do you have any idea what would have happened if you’d-“ Arthur began, then stopped. He heaved in as much air as he could, making his injuries complain, even through the haze of painkiller. “How stupid are you?” he asked.

“There were threats,” Merlin said. He didn’t even look concerned. “Someone warned me that I couldn’t watch you every second of the day. So I had to do something.” Arthur didn’t miss that ‘Someone’. He wondered who it had been. He didn’t imagine that it had been a friendly someone. And setting up protection? How long had Merlin been saving his life with magic, without Arthur even knowing?

“You could have warned me,” Arthur suggested. “Unless you felt I was incapable of taking care of myself.”

“She was a very powerful sorceress,” Merlin said. Arthur sighed, before turning to Gwaine.

“And you knew about this?” he demanded. Gwaine held up his hands in a placating way.

“Only after we’d already left,” he said. “I asked him how he thought he was going to save your life from all the way out here, and he said that he’d taken certain measures.”

Arthur wanted to yell at them both, but he couldn’t think of a reason to, not really, and he subsided, settling back into the uncomfortable kitchen chair.

“So,” he said after a moment, “if you’re so well informed about who wants to kill me, then perhaps you’d better start the list then. That sorceress, I suppose she’d better go on there.”

“Nimueh,” Merlin agreed, scribbling down the name.

“Anyone else who threatened to kill me that you ‘forgot’ to mention at the time?” Arthur asked. Merlin gave him his best innocent smile, but he wasn’t even vaguely fooled.

As it was, there had been. In the end they had a rather lengthy list, to be honest. He couldn’t quite stop his jaw from dropping open as Merlin listed name after name of people, half of whom Arthur had never even heard of, until the list was covering both sides of the notepaper.

“That’s a lot of names,” Arthur said mildly.

“Don’t forget the Russians,” Gwaine said. Arthur turned to stare at him, Merlin mirroring his movement.

“The Russians?” he asked after a moment.

“Gwaine always blames the Russians,” Merlin said.

“Why?”

“It’s always the Russians,” Gwaine replied. “Something I learnt from watching James Bond.”

“I did wonder where your obsession with blowing things up came from,” Arthur commented wryly. The grin that spread over Gwaine’s face was a sight from another era.

“C4 and alcohol,” Gwaine said. “My two favourite things.”

“So, no ‘the butler did it’?” Arthur asked.

“Did your father have a butler?” Gwaine asked, seemingly taking the suggestion entirely seriously. Arthur shook his head. Gwaine spread his hands wide as though everything was self-evident. “Must have been the Russians then.”

“Gwaine’s Ian Fleming induced racism aside,” Merlin said, casually cutting in. “We should cross-reference with those who could get in there, and who are powerful enough to cast a charm to blur them like you said. Or have the means to get someone else to do it for them.”

“How could any of them have access to my father’s home?” he asked. “It’s not like we hand out the door codes to anyone who asks for them. And the security guards would stop anyone they didn’t recognise. That’s what they’re there for.”

“They could change their appearance to get past the security guards,” Merlin said with a shrug. “That’s easy enough. I’ve done it before.”

Arthur opened his mouth to ask when and where, but thought better of it.

“The codes are more difficult,” Gwaine said. “You made those alarms magic resistant yourself, and I’ve seen that security system. You’d have to be an expert to crack it. So we’re down to magic users more powerful than you and people who had the codes.”

“Right,” Merlin went through the list, crossing people off arbitrarily. Arthur watched him curiously until the paper was mostly lines and Merlin was looking over the few names left with interest.

“Okay,” he said. “We’re down to Nimueh, Mordred, Myror and Catrina,” he said.

“Catrina?” Arthur asked, incredulous. “My father’s ex-wife, Catrina?”

“Yes,” Merlin said, shifting uncomfortably.

“Why is my father’s ex-wife on the list, Merlin?” Arthur asked, trying to keep his voice level and calm. “She wasn’t a magic user.”

“Uh…” Merlin said, which really answered that question.

“And you didn’t think that I should know that?” Arthur asked, amazed. His father and Catrina had been married for three years, torturous years by Arthur’s count. She had been thoroughly unpleasant, just as soon as they were married, but he had never suspected her of being anything more than the gold digging bitch she appeared. But then, he’d never thought of Merlin as more than the hapless idiot who tripped over his own shoelaces. He was beginning to wonder if he’d spent his earlier years in some sort of oblivion bubble.

“I did,” Merlin said. “But she knew that I was a magic user too, and if I told you about her then she’d tell you about me and no one would have believed me over her.”

“And, in order to be on the list, she’d have to want to kill my father too. Doesn’t that seem like something you should have told me as well?”

“I managed to convince her to go away,” Merlin said. “She wanted you and Uther for a spell, but I gave her an alternative and she agreed to leave you alone.”

“And you believed her?”

“I-“ Merlin sighed. Arthur remembered something, his brain catching on a detail.

He could remember going to his father’s that night. It had been freezing outside, and he had had his coat pulled as tightly around him as he could. The street had been full of cars, and he’d almost been run over by one as he’d crossed the road. He’d been moving too fast, trying to keep himself warm, and he hadn’t looked properly. The car had roared barely half a foot in front of him and he had glared after it. The registration number had rung a bell in his head, but he hadn’t realised. It had been so long since he’d seen that car, and he’d thought that it was one of his colleagues, or someone who lived nearby, and that was why he had known it. But it hadn’t been that.

“She was there,” Arthur said.

“Catrina?” Gwaine asked. “You’re sure?”

“Her car. I saw her car,” Arthur supplied.

“Going in or coming away?” Merlin asked, leaning forward over the table.

“I don’t know,” Arthur said with a shrug. “But it can’t have been her, can it?” he said. “She almost ran me over. My father was dead before I got in there and whoever did it was waiting for me.”

“If she almost ran you over then she definitely knew that you were there,” Merlin said slowly. Maybe she went back in to kill two birds with one stone.”

The three of them stared at the list.

“Whether she did it or not, she’s the best lead we’ve got,” Gwaine said.

“Then we’d better go and talk to her,” Arthur said, standing up.

“Brilliant,” Gwaine said, slinging an arm around Merlin’s shoulders and grinning. “Road trip, then. It’ll be like old times… except without the snazzy uniforms.”

“The Department doesn’t have uniforms,” Arthur pointed out. It was a clumsy attempt at light hearted conversation, but Gwaine was always good at soothing those over.

“Exactly like old times, then.”

“Apart from the bit where my father’s dead, I’m running for my life, suspected of his murder and we’re on our way to see someone you think wants to kill me,” Arthur tried to keep his voice flat, and it mostly worked. Thinking of things as a joke was always a good ploy to keep the demons down.

“Definitely more exciting than old times,” Gwaine said as Merlin elbowed him in the side.

“You’re just mad I interrupted that brawl you tried to get in last Thursday,” Merlin said mildly.

“I’ve missed a good brawl,” Gwaine admitted. “The problem with living under the radar is that you never get to have any fun.”

“Gwaine’s been having difficulty not getting arrested,” Merlin commented to Arthur, like that was just a fact of life.

“You should have just left him to the police,” Arthur said. There was a moment of silence as the other two stared at him. Arthur scanned his words for a moment, but couldn’t find why they seemed to think the comment so horrendous.

“The Department monitors police traffic,” Merlin pointed out, “and they have our prints, DNA and pictures on file.” He left unsaid what would happen when Gwaine’s identity was found. None of them needed that spelling out. Uther had been very clear over the years in his treatment of ‘dangerous’ magic users and Arthur had heard his tirades against the ‘traitors’ hiding in their midst. Dead or alive would have been the order, and no one would have cared about the state of the bodies.

“Ah,” Arthur said and awkward silence fell again. He almost opened his mouth to apologise, but then closed it again when he recalled, almost uncomfortably, that he had nothing to apologise for. They were the traitors, the liars and the fugitives.

*

-

part 3

-

PaperLegends: Tinker, Tailor, Wizard, Spy, Part 1, (R)

definewisdom — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 21:40:25 GMT

Title: Tinker, Tailor, Wizard, Spy
Fandom: Merlin
Rating: R (for violence)
Pairing(s): Merlin/Arthur, Merlin/Gwaine, Gwen/Lancelot, Uther/Ygraine, Uther/Catrina
Warnings: Character death, violence, swearing, Pop culture references abound, Spoilers for Season 3 of Merlin,
Word Count: ~54,200
Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin, I don't own any of its characters, I don't even own the title, really.
Author's Note: Written for paperlegends. Many thanks go to my beta and my long-suffering artist the_little_owl, who helped a tremendous amount. :) You were awesome, and I'm sorry for being such a flake. Please go over to the Master Art Post to see all the wonderful art that goes with this fic, and to comment on it. Images are also embedded in the fic at relevant points.

Summary: (Modern AU) The Department is a government organisation specifically created to investigate and deal with magic and the supernatural.

Until four years ago, Merlin Emrys was one of its agents, until he gave away his biggest secret and had to run away from his friends and his life.

Until last night, Uther Pendragon was in charge of it, until someone killed him, very messily.

Until last night, Arthur Pendragon was its second in command, until someone framed him for his father's murder.

Now Arthur's going to the only person left in the world who can help him, and Merlin's going to find himself dragged back into a world he had thought was behind him.

Meanwhile, in the aftermath of Uther's death and Arthur's alleged betrayal, Agent Leon Harris is determined that he's going to find out the truth, no matter what.

Tinker, Tailor, Wizard, Spy

It was past midnight when the knock came on the front door. At first Merlin thought it was just the wind battering it against the frame, but there was too much rhythm to it for that. It sounded, almost frantic. He froze for a moment, and cast a magical net out the door, trying to sense how many people were out there. Just the one. One person alone.

He cursed the paranoia, and forced his heart back to a reasonable rate, calming his breath in his throat. It had been four years and he still jumped at shadows. Just one person, not half a dozen agents from the Department to drag him down the research facilities. Not a death squad from the magical community come to make him pay for betraying them.

Just one person. But still, it was past midnight. No normal people would be banging on his door at this time of night. Five years ago he wouldn’t even have paused before going to answer it, in case it was someone who needed help. But becoming a wanted fugitive gave you reason to be more cautious. If it was a stranger looking for help they would move on soon enough.

The banging continued, though it seemed to be growing weaker. It must be someone looking for him in particular, then. He didn’t know many people who would need to see him in the middle of the night, and Gwaine would have phoned, unless he hadn’t been able to. Merlin told himself not to be stupid. It was probably something entirely normal. It had been years. If someone were going to find him, they would have done so by now.

He hadn’t made it upstairs to bed yet, glued to his computer in the study. The problem with the Internet, he mused, wincing at the dull burning of exhaustion behind his eyes, was that there was always something going on.

The knocking continued, but weaker than before.

“Coming,” he muttered, “I’m coming. It’s half past twelve – you can’t just expect me to...” he trailed off as he remembered that the person outside the door was almost certainly unable to hear him. “Whatever.”

He fumbled the lock the first time. Adrenalin coupled with exhaustion. He made sure that as many defensives spells from his repertoire (which, like his paranoia, had grown in the past five years) as possible were ready, if he needed them, then tried the latch again. It didn’t help that his fingers were tired from typing and slight cramp, but on the second attempt he managed to prise the door open.

It seemed heavier than usual, and he quickly realised why. He staggered back as the person outside fell on top of him, pushing the door out of the way. He made out a flash of blond hair and what looked, even just in the distant light of the street lamp, like thick, sticky blood.

“Merlin,” a voice said, muffled into his T-shirt. “About bloody time.”

Then his unexpected guest lost consciousness, and the only thing Merlin could think of to do was swear. He stared out past his uninvited house guest into the street, suspiciously, looking for shapes, bulky with body armour, or the glint of a streetlight on gunmetal. But there was nothing, and he could tell from where the man was draped over him, that he wasn’t dressed for a raid.

He had a suspicion he knew whose blood was soaking into his favourite t-shirt, though he had no idea what the blood, and its owner, were doing on his doorstep at all, let alone at this time of night. Merlin didn’t really know what to think about it. He had never expected to see Arthur Pendragon again, and he had always thought - known - that if he did, it would be at the head of the firing squad that had been tasked with taking him down as a dangerous magic user.

But now it seemed that he had been wrong, and he didn’t know what to make of it. The smell of blood was strong. This wasn’t a ruse. But that was no reason to stand on the doorstep, open to any prying eyes, curious or antagonistic.

“Arthur?” he said tentatively, shivering a little in a gust of cold wind that blew into the house. There was no response. “Arthur?” he tried again.

“You always did make me do the hard work,” he muttered.

It took more strength than Merlin really had to drag the resisting body of Arthur Pendragon into his hall and turn around to close the door with a shoulder. He might have let his grip slip a few times, and there was a slight incident involving Arthur’s head and the banister, but Merlin reasoned that whatever damage could possibly ever have been done to Arthur’s thick head had probably already been done by this time, if the blood was anything to go by. His shock had evaporated into irritation and anger that had been suppressed for years. What right did Arthur have, even drenched in his own blood, to turn up on his doorstep now, just when he was starting to settle down, starting not to see enemies round every corner? What right did Arthur have to come to him for help? How did Arthur even know where to find him?

And what right did Arthur have to still make him want to help?

So yes, Arthur’s head might have had a few more bruises by the time Merlin had finished moving him than it had had before, but, in Merlin’s opinion, that was what he got for being so inconsiderate.

Arthur would have been horrified by how ungainly his journey to the sofa in the front room was. Merlin managed to turn them around so that Arthur had his back to him, and then he dragged Arthur, arms hooked under his armpits, to the tiny living room.

By the time Arthur was on the sofa, with none of his limbs falling off (it wasn’t quite big enough for a small child to lie across, Arthur, at 6 foot, had his feet and calves lolling over one arm.

“Bugger.” Merlin said, looking at the long smear of blood that the trip had left over his carpet. That was more than he had thought. Head wounds tended to bleed a lot, but that...

Irritation ebbed for a moment, replaced by concern. He stared at Arthur’s face, frowning even in unconsciousness. He hadn’t seen that face in almost four years, and the last time he had, there hadn’t even been a flicker of emotion across it. The last time he had seen that mouth it had been shaping the words ‘leave or I will kill you.’

He didn’t think of going to a hospital. Arthur had come here for a reason, and whatever that reason was, good or bad, it seemed fairly certain that he wasn’t going to be happy to wake up and find Merlin had ditched him at a hospital and run. Not to mention that Merlin tended to avoid all government buildings these days.

And besides, Merlin didn’t owe Arthur a thing. He didn’t owe him anything at all.

Except for your life... his brain provided handily. Reminding him that that last time the pair of them had been this close, Arthur would have been within the law to shoot him dead then and there. In fact, it would have been expected of him. But Arthur had let him go, let him run.

But none of that mattered. None of that even came into the equation because this was Arthur and Merlin was never just going to leave him to clean up his own messes, was he? This was Arthur and they’d been through hell together and – the last time they had seen each other aside – they had always been willing to die for each other.

So he grabbed the towels, the bandages and a tub of hot water and started to try and help Arthur’s wounds. One to the head – Merlin couldn’t tell whether he had fallen on something or been hit, a slight wound across the back of one thigh – not deep enough to be serious, luckily – which Merlin immediately was from a knife, defensive wounds to the hands and lower arms, and a slight shallow cut to the abdomen, which again was lucky to have missed everything important.

“You always were a lucky bastard,” he said, trying to fill the unnatural silence of the early morning with some sort of noise. But the reply he half expected (It’s not luck, Merlin, it’s skill!) didn’t come.

Bandaged and mostly naked, Arthur looked more like the man Merlin remembered. And wasn’t that a trip down memory lane he really didn’t want to take.

The unconsciousness seemed to pass into a natural sleep after a little while, if the snores that were beginning to come were anything. So Merlin grabbed his phone and hit speed-dial.

“Gwaine?”

“You do realise it’s 2 am, Merlin...” came the Irish voice down the line.

“Sorry, were you sleeping?” Merlin asked. His concern was met by a surprised laugh.

“Not even close... so, did you just miss my voice?”

“Arthur’s here.” Merlin said simply. There was a moment of silence.

“Can you get out?” Gwaine asked, suddenly completely alert. “Never mind, I’m coming-“

“It’s not like that,” Merlin cut in quickly, before Gwaine could plan their dramatic escape from the evil forces of the Pendragon private army. “I think- He looks like he’s in trouble.”

“What sort of trouble?”

“The sort of trouble where you get stabbed and then look up the last person anyone would ever think you’d contact so that you can hide out.”

“Ah... that sort of trouble.” There was a rustling from Gwaine’s end of the phone line and Merlin could hear the clink of keys. Gwaine somehow made it sound as though that type of trouble was nothing to worry about and utterly common place. But then, knowing Gwaine, it probably was – or had been.

“You don’t need to come.” Merlin said, with a sigh. Gwaine would make this real. And Merlin was sort of enjoying the slightly surreal edge to the situation.

“Pendragon turns up on your doorstep in that sort of trouble?” Gwaine said with a huff of laughter. “This isn’t something I’m planning on missing. Plus – that sort of trouble has a way of hunting people down. You might need help.”

Merlin considered protesting that he’d be fine for a moment, but he thought the better of it. He didn’t want to handle this alone, even if he could.

“Thanks.”

“What are friends for?”

“Taking incriminating pictures.”

“And I was hoping you’d forgotten that,” Gwaine said with a laugh. Merlin could hear the bang of a door. “I’ll be over in ten. Make sure Pendragon’s safe.”

“I didn’t think you cared if he lived or died.”

“I don’t,” Gwaine said, “I meant that you should tie him up.”

“He’s unconscious.”

“That’s what he wants you to think.”

“I’ll see you soon, okay,” Merlin said, cutting off the conversation. Gwaine sighed, but let it drop.

“Soon.”

There was a click down the line and Merlin hung up, casting another look over at Arthur where he was lying.

“I should have put some plastic bags down, shouldn’t I?” he said, seeing where the fabric of the sofa was being dyed dark brown with drying blood. “That’s going to cost me.” His first permanent(ish) home in years and Arthur had to come in a ruin the furniture. “It’s not even my sofa, it comes with the house. You’re worse than a pet dog, you know that?”

It was easier to talk to Arthur like that: just joke and pretend that nothing had ever gone wrong. In the time it had taken Merlin to clean him up, almost all of the anger had ebbed away, replaced by a strange feeling of calm resignation. This was happening and he was just going to have to deal with it.

He fetched his bag from upstairs, where it sat, permanently packed with some clothes, some money and some fake identification that Gwaine had managed to get for them. Merlin hadn’t asked where it had come from.

He dropped the bag in the hallway, ready to be picked up at a moment’s notice and then looked at Arthur.

Arthur mumbled something in his sleep, which made Merlin grin. Some things never changed.

“I wonder if you still dream about zombie ducks,” he said to the air.

*

Arthur ached all over. He could feel his fingertips and teeth throbbing. A spot on his scalp burned angrily and the skin of his hands felt tight.

Not to mention his feet appeared to have gone to sleep.

He opened his eyes slowly, trying to piece together the day before, trying to remember where the pain and the sudden swell of panic had come from.

The room he was in was small and the wall he was facing was covered in books mostly second hand and ratty, with a tiny television shoved in a corner, surrounded by so many books – piled on top and in front – that it was clearly never used except for special occasions.

The carpet was grubby and a strange shade of greenish brown, which might once have just been green. Arthur was just wondering how he had come to wake up somewhere like this when he realised there was someone else in the room, a dark figure in the corner of his eye.

Gwaine was leaning against the door frame, arms crossed and eyes narrowed. He looked almost identical to the last time Arthur had seen him, guarding Merlin’s escape.

Merlin Arthur’s thoughts caught on the name suddenly. Merlin. He had gone to see Merlin. That was where he was; he had run, bleeding, and he had gone to Merlin because Merlin was the only person he trusted.

And Merlin must have called Gwaine because Gwaine was the only person he trusted.

“Where’s Merlin?” Arthur asked, trying to pull himself upright. Gwaine gave a little huff of irritation – or amusement, it had always been difficult to tell with him.

“Upstairs, catching up on the rest he missed last night stopping you from becoming a pretty corpse,” Gwaine said.

“I...” Arthur looked down at the bandages half covering him. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

“Perhaps to someone you didn’t betray and threaten to kill? Could have been a start,” Gwaine suggested, swinging himself up from his leaning position to walk over. His walk was the same too, swagger and dangerous, perfectly balanced, but seemingly a little drunken.

“There’s no one left I can trust.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Gwaine asked. “Finally worked out that all those willing minions of yours were just in it for themselves.”

Arthur paused, gritting his teeth together. He had not expected to bump into Gwaine and he had no desire to go over this with him. The man had been a liability before, when his drinking, gambling and flirting had vied with his love of risks to make him one of the most temperamental agents Arthur had ever had the displeasure of working with, but now, as a civilian, he was worse. And he had an axe to grind with Arthur personally.

But Arthur would need whatever help he could find and Gwaine was brave, and loyal to a fault. Even if looking at him reminded Arthur of what he should have been, rather than what he was.

He pushed the guilt for things long past out of his head. Arthur couldn’t have done what Gwaine did, just running off on the spur of the moment. He had had other obligations.

Which brought him to his reason for being here. He took a rushed breath in and set his face as blankly as possible before he opened his mouth.

“My father is dead,” he said quietly.

“Long live the King.” Gwaine’s voice had sarcasm oozing out of every syllable. “Thank you for delivering the good news yourself. Did you bring some champagne, because Merlin and me don’t really have the funds… one issue of being wanted fugitives.”

“He was murdered.” Arthur said, a little louder. “My father was murdered yesterday and... they think I did it.” Gwaine blinked, his mouth opening slightly, and his brow crinkling, but he adapted well and didn’t bother to fill the air with platitudes they would have both known to be lies.

“Who thinks you did it?” He asked instead, cutting straight to the point. Arthur was grateful for the lack of preamble. It was easier to handle questions than sympathy.

“Everyone.” Arthur stared down at the green-brown floor, it swam for a moment, and his throat hurt with how tight it had become. He forced the feelings down, he had no time for that. He wasn’t free to grieve or fear. He needed to sort this out, as soon as possible.

“Did you?” Gwaine asked.

“Did I what?” Arthur asked.

“Kill Uther. I wouldn’t blame you for it. Might even make me like you a little more.” Gwaine’s grin made Arthur want to punch him in the jaw, more than he’d wanted to punch anyone in a long time.

“I didn’t kill my father!” Arthur said, his voice rising in indignation. He struggled to his feet as best he could. “Say that again and I’ll have your life.”

Gwaine chuckled, walking forward a little further to take Arthur’s arm and push him back down to the sofa. Even the light touch made Arthur wince a little, and he knew that he couldn’t put up a fight right then

“In your current state, I doubt you could best a small child. You don’t want to try me right now. Maybe when you’re better I’ll show you who’s really the better man.”

“In your dreams,” Arthur muttered.

“Go to sleep,” Gwaine told him shortly, with a half grin that might, just might, have been the beginnings of forgiveness.

Alternatively, it could have been the beginnings of revenge. Gwaine always was difficult to read.

But revenge or forgiveness, Arthur lowered himself, still aching, back onto the sofa and slid into the sort of exhaustion that caught up with you quickly. By the time he woke up again, Merlin and Gwaine were nowhere to be seen and he lay alone in the morning sun.

*

-

Part 2

-

Fic: Sherlock (BBC); Come and See; R (part 2)

definewisdom — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 22:41:15 GMT

Back to part 1

They were just lucky that it happened in the middle of the night, that was all she could say.

Rivers of blood. Usually it was a metaphor.

For all Mycroft Holmes had just been woken up at two am, he looked surprisingly refreshed. His suit was immaculate and he didn’t even have a hint of grogginess about him. If she didn’t know better, she’d think that he wasn’t human.

They were standing on the edge of the Thames and he was looking at a sample in a jar rather curiously.

“Rather biblical, isn’t it?” he said. She chuckled as expected, but didn’t look up. This was going too far – far too far – now.

The news bulletin on her phone informed her that half of India had just been covered by a plague of mosquitoes and there was a confirmed case of small pox in Brazil.

Biblical was quite a good word, really.

She looked over at Mycroft and wondered for a second, whether, if she told him what the choice was – his brother or the world – he would be able to make a decision.

But then that was what she was here for, wasn’t it?

*

Unknown Number:
He’s still alive.

John Watson:
Give me more time.

Unknown Number:
Things are beginning to unravel.

*

Life in Baker Street was the most curious combination of cosy domesticity and utter insanity that John had ever known, and he had a lot of experience. He had never connected with anyone as quickly as he had connected with Sherlock Holmes.

The world outside was breaking into pieces, but inside the flat things felt like they were somehow holding each other together.

Sherlock was infuriating, terrible and insulting. He would mock John’s intelligence one second and then fly into a tantrum, the next. But in between there were moments when he was completely different and completely amazing.

John worked around him and Sherlock learnt to work around John. And everything was human, even the middle of the night trips to crime scenes, even the all nighters examining evidence or trying to work out a puzzle. They would have conversations about everything from the mundane (which take-away did the best beef in black bean sauce) to the eccentric (whether a one legged butcher from Birmingham could possibly have kidnapped an ambassador’s cat).

And John loved every second of it, even the parts which drove him mad. Even the impromptu concertos performed at five thirty in the morning. Even the experiments and the sneers. He gave back as good as he got and he kept forgetting the thing that he really shouldn’t ever forget.

Sherlock Holmes had to die.

John knew that.

But...

His sister was right: he was getting too human, too attached. The boundaries were slipping, or perhaps they had already slipped. There had never used to be ‘but’s. There had never been anything but clarity. Mortality clouded things.

Sherlock went away to Belarus and John had time to think about things. He had time to plan. He would not do it himself, of course, but he knew how to arrange things as necessary. He could have Sherlock run over by a car any day of the week, but that death seemed wrong for Sherlock Holmes. He should go out with a bang: something amazing, something incredible, saving the world.

John tried not to think that, at this point, any death that Sherlock had would save the world.

*

London – 1665

“I guess it must be my turn,” his brother said, leaning over the bed. John – his name had been John back then too, some names never went out of fashion – tried to swallow.

“Please...” he says, the word was thick in his mouth. He was delirious. “End it.”

“Not yet, brother. You know as well as I do that these things have to run their course.”

“Please...” John had the swellings on his groin and neck. He knew what it meant. His wife died this way, he watched her through the seizures and the moans of pain. Now it was his turn. Every muscle in his body ached and he was shivering, though he knew his skin was probably burning to the touch. “I beg of you, brother...”

“You were given mortality so you would know what it is that they suffer,” the man above him said. His voice was thick with self-satisfaction. “That’s what you say, isn’t it? You are mortal so you can understand your own nature. So understand this.”

It took John three more hours to die and in the end he was crying, delirious with the agony of it. He would have been screaming, but his voice was gone. His brother watched every second of it.

*

Sherlock returned from easter Europe, irritated and irritable and that should have made things easier. It really should. But it didn’t.

It didn’t make things easier at all. It made them worse.

John could see Time fracturing. There were floods happening in a dozen different places in the world. A hurricane was about to hit the southern states of America and he knew the names of every person who had died and every person who would die and it was all his fault.

Fault. That was a new one on him. Guilt.

Responsibility, he knew it in a mortal sense, but now it was there on a metaphysical level as well.

And Hell followed with him.

Sherlock was insufferable and childish and so damn ungrateful. John saved the world for him he gave the world for him. Things were falling apart at the seams. It was collapsing.

He thought that maybe he should just take the gun and fire a shot through Sherlock’s brilliant brain. That might solve all their problems. But then again, it might not. Things had gone so far now that maybe there was no way back.

He thought carefully about the future, and something happened that has never happened before. Time fractured.

Usually there was a clear line, what would happen, no matter what, stretching on until the end of days and then, an eternity of nothing.

Usually he knew. This time, he saw.

He killed Sherlock, blood, brains, spattered all over the flat. Mrs Hudson crying, Mycroft angry and the city of London crumbled, crumbled down so far he couldn’t see an end to it.

He arranged Sherlock’s death, a cold body on a morgue slab, Molly crying for a little while before straightening up and cutting him open with complete professionalism. Moriarty rose and suddenly the streets were red with blood. Chaos reigned.

His sister had Sherlock killed. He disappeared never to be seen or heard from again. There was a gap in the universe that needed to be there, but the centre couldn’t stay up.

Sherlock died in something completely unpremeditated. There was grief and shock, Moriarty rose, a little mad, with no balance, no other self, no purpose. The world burned.

Sherlock lived. The world couldn’t contain him any longer and the end was there.

Sherlock lived, he died, he lived, the world died, the world survived, it burnt, it fell, it cracked and split and died again and again and again. John watched Sherlock die a thousand times and then a thousand times a thousand times.

He saw the world quake and crumble and break to bits.

The images rushed at him, so many, so much everything, all at once. They layered on top of each other, like the world’s most macabre collage. Sherlock dead, the world dead, people dead in their scores.

It was too much, he couldn’t handle every part of it, not in that body. His head felt like it might explode. It felt like he was splitting apart and like he was floating on the uncertainty.

He seized hold of one thread of future and pulled it to him, pushing all the others away.

This was the future.

Sherlock was alive. Lying on his back on the sofa, drug paraphernalia littering the room around him. Outside London was collapsing in on itself and its saviour was caught in the half-life of a man who should be dead.

This was limbo, Sherlock Holmes style, drugged up to his eyeballs, looking for a way out.

He opened his eyes, obscenely dark in the ash white face.

“John?” he asked. “I... can see you. You look like stars.”

John looked behind him, but the only version of him there was himself, past him, him who hadn’t lived this future yet (and yet he had because he was everywhere and everywhen, but linear progression was so much easier to keep in mind).

“You’re a gateway,” Sherlock sayid. His voice sounded like an echo of an echo. “I can see through you.”

“Sherlock, you’re high.” John said with as much strength as he could muster.

“People used to believe that drugs opened the eyes to see the truth,” Sherlock told him. “Are you true?”

“I think I’m the only thing left that is,” John said. The words came from all of him, not just John the man or the other part of himself, all of him together.

“I think so too...”

In the present, John let go of the future and let the shards of time slip away from him, dissolving. He couldn’t handle that and it hadn’t helped at all. It didn’t tell him what the best course of action was it just showed him grief.

The real world felt hazy and insubstantial for a while, like he was still floating. Until, that was, he opened the fridge.

“There’s a head in the fridge,” he said, and suddenly everything was real again and hell hadn’t come along just yet and there might still be time.

*

Unknown Number:
Where are you?

S. Moran:
Doing my job.

Unknown Number:
This is important.

S. Moran:
Busy.

*

Violent crime had risen in the past few weeks. Lestrade had been assigned murder cases faster than he could complete the paperwork. Most of them were small and petty. A wife battered her husband’s head in with a rolling pin because he was sleeping with his secretary. A teenager pushed his little brother down the stairs accidentally. Five muggings gone wrong, two armed robberies where ‘heroes’ found that heroism often has unpleasant side-effects (such as being shot in the head). Drugs overdoses were up too.

It was like every scumbag in the country had decided to make their way to London. Must have been a month with a vowel in.

That was, of course, when things had to go from bad to worse.

A letter showed up for Sherlock Holmes and you just knew that had to be a bad sign.

*

The world had decided that it was the apocalypse, or at least the Internet had. Or it had before Mycroft had decided that freedom of speech was really just a phrase for humanity’s inability to mind its own business.

Somehow, none of the DOOM messages seemed to be getting through. The pastor of a small church in Alabama was becoming rather irate. A young girl at a Northern English University was typing rather rude things into comment boxes and ReCaptcha questions, but they never showed up

Humanity never realised, when it put so much of itself on the Internet, how easy computers were to manipulate.

Anthea could do a thousand things at once. She was not quite as good at multi-tasking as her older brother, but it was more than enough to suppress the rumours. Mycroft was otherwise occupied with heads of state. She tended to leave him alone with those conversations. He was actually quite good at them, for a mortal, just the right mix of manipulative and softly spoken.

Today she kept an ear open, though.

She had five different methods of death planned out for Sherlock Holmes, but she was at least going to give her brother a chance to put this right. She couldn’t kill the man without his consent, anyway. And she really didn’t want to find out what would happen if she killed Sherlock Holmes and he didn’t die.

Things would probably get worse.

*

Harriet Watson:
Is it just me or is the world
going to hell in a handbasket?

Unknown Number:
Not just you. Talk to him, will you?

Harriet Watson:
I’ll try.

*

Somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean – 1832

There was no room to move, no light to see by, just the press of bodies around him.

He could still see it all though, every inch of the waste and the loss.

He hadn’t eaten in days. His stomach stopped rumbling a day later. There wa nothing in his head but everything.

And then his sister appeared. There wa no place for her to stand. But somehow she managed it, finding the spaces between the bodies. She was as real as the rest of them, but she was not there.

She touched his face gently. She looked like she wanted to say something, but she couldn’t. In the darkness of the ship’s hold, the white of her hurt his eyes.

His mouth was too dry to speak but she understood what he wanted anyway. Stay, he asked.

She took his hand.

The next day his body was thrown over the side. The slavers had no need for dead weight.

*

John was on his way to Sarah’s when he saw his brother.

Like his sisters, Sebastian didn’t change. He was standing on the corner of the street in a long black coat that he wore like armour. He had a beard, cut short, and perfectly styled hair. There was also a smile on his face. When people caught sight of it out of the corner of their eyes they flinched away and their footsteps quickened.

“It’s been a while”, John said, walking up to him. He was not sure what this was about. It took effort to apply his omniscience to his siblings so, in general, he tried not to. Looking into Sebastian was like looking into a bottomless pit, or an oil well.

“Did you wonder what I was doing?” Sebastian asked, his smirk growing.

“Not really.” John replied.

“Perhaps you should have done.”

He would never know how Sebastian did it. He would never know how it happened. But for a few minutes John was nowhere, nowhere at all.

It was an impossibility and that was why it had to be true.

Those few minutes were the moments of purest solitude John had ever felt, in any of his lifetimes, stretching back to the beginnings of time when he floated in the ether as a particle of something in a vast expanse of nothingness, before his siblings existed, before he himself had really been defined.

John wondered sometimes, in the moments when the world seemed to keep ticking relentlessly on, when his human side wanted to shout and hold back the tide, whether he existed because he existed. He was the first, the beginning, the start, but as soon as something existed, he had to exist because nothing lasted forever and if he was the first thing to exist then maybe he had started it all.

It made his mortal brain hurt, but his other self, his big self, his self that saw planets and stars and galaxies collapse, that self didn’t think that the question matters.

But there were no questions or answers in those few minutes after he saw Sebastian standing there. There was nothingness.

Coming back to himself (and himself) was a nightmare. The world, the universe, the multiverse, crushed in on him again and he felt, simultaneously tiny and massive.

His human body was tied to a chair opposite a man he recognised.

He didn’t even need to think about it, he just knew.

“Moriarty.”

“Oh, your friend said you were quick. Wakey-wakey, Johnny boy. Rise and Shine!”

John looked at him and saw Jim, the possibly gay man whom he had met in Barts, and then, with his other eyes, he saw Moriarty. Sebastian’s fingerprints were all over him, like burned marks on his skin. There was fire underneath his skin too, and ice, right at the core. The man looked like he was exploding constantly.

“Don’t try to leave, brother,” Sebastian said from the doorway. But he was not Sebastian here, he was darkness, with a face as pale as snow, his eyes were empty sockets. John, though, hadn’t changed. He was still in his cardigan, shirt and trousers, which were rumpled and dusty. If anyone could see them now, they would call Sebastian by John’s name. - That was how humans saw him, wasn’t it? The pale rider, a skull in a black shroud. “You’d have to fight me to do that and you know how much damage that would cause.”

John didn’t, not really. They had never done that before. None of them had ever fought another, there had never been any point. But he knew there were forty humans within two hundred yards of them and billions of other creatures too, from bacteria to bugs to cats and dogs and foxes. Life was teeming around them.

John sagged, defeated.

“You’ve let it take you, brother. You’ve forgotten what you are, forgotten who you are supposed to be, who you really are underneath that flesh and blood and bone. I bet you even think of yourself as John Watson.”

“So this is some kind of intervention?” John asked.

“No, this is some kind of a coup. We all must bow to you. You are the first and the last. You were there at the beginning and you will be at the end. Not if I end you here, you won’t. I will take your crown, I will take your power because you don’t deserve it anymore.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” John told him. “You can’t end me. It would destroy everything.”

“More than you’ve destroyed it all ready?” Sebastian asked. “I don’t have to end you, though. I just have to shut you up somewhere. Box you off so that I don’t have to put up with you and your awful humanity.”

“You can’t?”

“Can’t I?”

John turned his full attention to the mortal world again. Moriarty was smiling at him, oblivious to the other conversation.

“Now, we’re going to give Sherlock a nice surprise.”

*

John Watson’s parents died together, in a car accident, on the fifteenth of March 2005.

He didn’t cry for them.

After their death, Harry and he rewrote history, or the memory of history anyway, and she became his sister officially. She stood by his side in the funeral and she tried to understand why he was crying.

“You knew this was going to happen,” she told him. “It can’t be the shock.”

“They were my parents, Harry.”

“So were a million other people. What makes them different?”

“They just are.”

That was the day she met Clara, too, though Clara will always remember meeting Harry years before. Clara had been a friend of John’s since University, a teacher now.

“Everybody dies,” Harry said, surveying the reception buffet like a starving woman. “You know that better than anyone.”

*

“Plastic explosive,” Moriarty explained as he had John’s brother help him into the vest. John let his arms go in through the slots because he honestly couldn’t see what other choices he had. His brother, Sebastian, had cut off every possibility of his escape. He wa protecting Moriarty, he had some sort of power over John himself – enough to make him black out - and if John made a move then he’d make sure that every person within several miles of them died horribly. “It’s part of the game, after all.”

John let them dress him up like a doll. This was all his fault. If he had let Sherlock die then this would never have happened. It would never even have crossed Moriarty’s mind. But now he and Sebastian had been caught in the avalanche that John started and it was all rushing forwards with one purpose and one purpose alone.

Sherlock Holmes had to die. And if the world went with him, and the universe and every inch of time and space, then so be it.

He blacked out again, Sebastian’s smirk was the last thing he saw.

He woke up in a swimming pool. His human nose told him that almost as quickly as his other self knew. But it was his other self that could feel Sherlock near. Sherlock had always been obvious to him, but more so than ever since John had saved his life. He was an anomaly.

He could hear his brother’s voice in his head, not making any pretence at the normality the others strove for in their communications.

He’s just a human.

John didn’t even bother replying. There was a web around him, blocking him off from everything. He was trapped in his tiny little human body and stuck in semtex and fabric and life.

Another voice cmes and, for a second, John thought that Moriarty was somehow in his head too. But then he realised that he wa wearing an earpiece.

“Almost show time, John. Make me proud.”

*
Two battles, two conversations, and John was trying to keep up with them both. In the real world, Sherlock and Moriarty face each other properly for the first time.

In the other world, Sebastian’s standing right behind John’s shoulder and talking to him.

“Can you see it?” he asked, John kept his back straight and his chin as high as he could manage. “Can you see how the world will go? If Sherlock had died when he was meant to, then perhaps it would have worked out, but you made things tip, didn’t you?”

John couldn’t say anything at the moment, not really, he was searching, desperately searching for a possible future that ended well. Every strand of time he grasped hold of ended with devastation.

“The world needs villains to counter its heroes, John. Sherlock needed an opposite,” Sebastian said. “They call you the great equaliser, the balancer, don’t they? How did it escape your notice?”

Sherlock refused to call himself a hero, refused to accept the mantle. He didn’t do what he did because of morals, or purpose, or even justice. There were no noble thoughts behind his actions. John knew that really, had seen it back at the beginning when they had met and he had, just for a second, seen that Sherlock might have been as close to the edge as he himself was. Sherlock did what he did because it was what he wanted to do, because the idea of him not doing it was alien to him.

John opened his mouth to tell Sebastian that, but the words didn’t come. Because somewhere in there, Sherlock was a hero, a bloody minded, misplaced sort of a hero. He was not a hero because he wanted to be, he was a hero because he had to be, because that was what he was. And he didn’t even realise it.

John had met heroes before. They died young and bloody. He had seen wild eyes caught in the frenzy of battle still, and he had answered questions like ‘did I do it right’, ‘did I save them’ and ‘did I make a difference?’ He knew instinctively that when he collected Sherlock’s soul, there wouldn’t be any of that frenzy or frantic questioning. Sherlock wouldn’t care about what he was leaving behind other than the last piece of the puzzle.

Part of the reason John didn’t want him to die was because he didn’t want to see that moment. He wanted Sherlock to be a hero just a moment longer. Because even if he wasn’t, he was.

“I’ve got to hand it to you though, little brother,” Sebastian said, John could just make out the sickening sweet smell of his breath, like breath mints over rotten meat. “I’ve been trying to take the world to this point for centuries. I’ve stirred up genocides, meltdowns and plagues. I’ve created natural disasters and industrial revolutions and I’ve never even had a tenth of the effect you had just by caring for one man.

“Though it’s only fitting, if you think about it,” Sebastian leant right in, right next to his ear and whispered the next words like they were a wicked secret. “You are the end of all things.”

John surged forward then, there was rage in the human parts of him, though it seemed bigger than that. It was as though the human bit of him had expanded outside the human body, into the rest of him. Perhaps he was contaminated. But perhaps he didn’t care. He wrapped his arms around Moriarty and called for Sherlock to run because there were two things in this universe that he was certain of:

Sometimes Free Will was more important than Destiny.

And the whole of the sodding world could burn if Sherlock got to live one more hour.

But he was outplayed and outmanoeuvred. All those years he spent trying to fit in and separating himself out, his brother had been planning, planning and perfecting.

He thought, just for a moment, about reaching out to that sniper and taking his life. But... He stopped and stepped back.

Sebastian was laughing as Moriarty was leaving and then the world, the real world, stopped dead. Sherlock was caught mid-stare, looking at John as though he knew the world was falling apart.

And then John was elsewhere.

The throne room was dark now, huge and cavernous, and somewhere in the background there was screaming.

Only his brother’s throne was occupied. Sebastian sat on the black chair as though he was part of it and the blackness was so all encompassing it was impossible for even John to tell where his brother began and the chair ended.

“I thought I would give you the dignity to end it yourself, here and now. I still have a little respect for what you once were,” Sebastian sounded patronising.

But, if it was possible, John was now more John than he had been since he stood in the chamber of Osiris and said that he didn’t want to go mad. He looked at the wooden chair for a second in irritation. It was stark, plain and uncomfortable. He had been sitting on it for too many years and enough, as he had said, was enough.

Without even a conscious idea of what he was doing, the chair changed, mutated. There was padding and upholstery and a faded pattern that was almost worn through with use. It wasn’t a throne anymore, it was a place to sit. John smiled at it for a second and nodded to himself. If he was going to face this, then he would do it as himself, all of himself.

“But I see that you don’t agree.” Sebastian’s mouth twisted in disgust. “All the comforts of home.” He spat out the last word as though it offended him, but John just smiled and sat down in the armchair. He kept his back bolt upright, because some things would never change, but at least he was comfortable.

“Yeah, that was the idea,” he admitted. “So... what’s the plan?”

“It is too late for the world to be saved,” Sebastian told him, “you tipped it too far. A lesser person, perhaps, but Sherlock Holmes is too important to be misplaced.”

“If it’s too late then why should I do anything you ask?” John asked.

“Because it will be easier for you in the long run.”

“No.”

Sebastian blinked and looked at John, sitting in his overused armchair, sipping at a cup of tea (a cup of tea?). He looked tiny, frail and human in the vastness of the room, next to the terror of the other thrones.

“You are done,” Sebastian said, his voice rising until it almost echoed off walls so far away they might as well not exist.

“Sorry if I don’t take your word for that,” John told him, before swallowing another mouthful of tea and letting out a satisfied breath. “I really needed that. Say what you like about the British, tea is one of the things they’re right about.”

“If you resist me...”

“I can’t imagine any reason I wouldn’t,” John told him, setting down the cup and saucer on the table. They rattled ominously, like the start of an earthquake. “I am not going to sit down and take it quietly, brother. I’m not going to surrender. And I’m not going to forget this.” He stood up and for a second, it seemed like he was the tallest thing in the room, before perspective reasserted itself and he was just a shorter-than-average man in what seemed to be a giant’s dining room.

“I’m never going to forget this,” he said calmly. “Now let’s go back and see how it ends, then. Shall we?”

“Fine,” Sebastian said, getting to his own feet. He glared at the teacup for a moment before reaching out. The air formed into something solid, a ring of metal – barbed wire – and he placed it on his head. “The endgame then.”

*

Time hurtled back into existence, and Sherlock was suddenly running at John, tearing off the bomb and the coat, throwing them away. John was trying to work out what came next, but the entire world was suddenly up in the air. There was no future marked out.

Somewhere out there, he was sure his sister was having a field day.

Sebastian hadn’t come at him yet, and he couldn’t quite help the way his legs buckled. Human frailty could be his end here. It could be the end of all of it.

Sherlock paced, paced, backwards and forwards, like he did when his thoughts were too big for his head. His body couldn’t keep up with the pace of his mind, but it tried its hardest. John was still waiting for the other shoe to drop. He and his brother just declared war and there was a mad psychopath tying bombs to people, but nothing happened.

He joked, just a bit. There was hope, because there was always hope, and so he joked. Sherlock laughed and it was like that first evening when John had upset the balance of the whole universe and he didn’t quite understand what was happening. Chinese and giggles.

Then it crashed down again. The ultimate cruelty was the illusion of escape, the illusion of hope.

Sebastian was there, Moriarty wa’s there, and so were Sherlock and John.

“One move,” Sebastian said. Neither of them expected Sherlock to be the one who made it.

The gun came down to point at the bomb on the tiled floor. Sherlock glanced at John and there was a moment where John just thought to hell with it all, and nodded.

Sherlock might die, Sebastian might win, but the world was broken and there was nothing he could bloody well do to fix it anyway.

The world exploded on both planes. In reality the swimming pool was crashing around them and on the other side, John was suddenly aware of parts of himself that he had never been aware of before, not in this life time anyway.

Sight was lost, this far in. Sebastian was a feeling around him, through him. Poison in his veins, dirt clinging to his skin, the darkness of his shadow.

The battle of wills might have gone on for an eternity or it might have gone on for the blink of an eye, the space between thoughts. It did both, because that was always how these things worked, and then John, for a split second, was everything.

He was every planet, every star, every black hole. He was every thought, every grain of sand, every bacterium. He was tiny and huge and everything.

And Sebastian was always there, wherever he lookeds, but he was not everything. Sebastian was a tiny part of the whole, and John saw it for that instant, that blink of an eye, long enough to get the gist, but not quite long enough to burn him into madness.

He saw the whole of time, and briefly, he understood.

He pulled Sebastian back into human form and he stood over him, looking down at his brother where he lay on the floor, panting for air that he had never needed.

“No,” he said, because that was one word that bore repeating (and he was going to need all the practice he could get if he was going to use it on Sherlock more often – which he would be doing). “That is not what you are.” He leant down and he took the coil of wire from his brother’s head and held it up. It changed, flattened into a broad circle, lightened until it was the white of bone china, with a rather ugly flower pattern marring its surface.

As an afterthought, a pile of biscuits appeared on it. A selection, because variety was important in these things, and while John had always liked rich tea biscuits, everyone liked a change now and then.

He offered them to Sebastian, who stared at him like he’s mad.

“Right.” John was not quite certain what was going to come next, the knowledge was fading already and all he really knew was that he had to go and fix things. Really had to fix things because one little world in one little corner of the universe was only the beginning. If he didn’t work things out properly, it was all going to unravel. “Stay here then, I’ll be back when I’ve worked everything out with Sherlock. Try not to make too much of a mess.”

Then, as easy as breathing, he was back in reality again, with things crashing about him, and it was all on him now.

There were three ways in which this could work.

In the first, Sherlock died, and John fixed everything so that it tipped back from the edge.

That was the simplest way, the way most people would expect it to work. But occasionally it was possible, in extreme circumstances, to swap lives – one for another.

People made bargains with death all the time, they said ‘please’ and begged ‘my life for hers’. But for something like that to work (and sometimes it did) the connection between the two people needed to be profound, deep. Usually it was a blood relative, occasionally a lover. Soul-mate is the technical term and, despite what films liked to show, those didn’t come along very often at all. Once in fifty years, perhaps, once in a century more likely.

But, Moriarty and Sherlock could fall into the category. It was a disturbing, repulsive parody of the traditional idea of soulmates, but the connection was there. That was clear enough to see. Sherlock’s first case – Carl Powers. Coincidence piled on top of coincidence. John had seen it all in that brief second, all the things Sherlock didn’t know. Some of the things that even Moriarty didn’t know. They were as connected as any other pair in the universe could possibly be.

So, to take Moriarty in Sherlock’s place. It would work and it would in its own way help redress the balance at the same time. It would be a beautiful solution in its symmetry. But yet...

Sherlock was lying on the ground, half covered by rubble, his hair bleached silver with dust. John could make out Moriarty’s shoe a distance away.

He wasn’t sure how either of them would work without the other, not yet. Sherlock... he could see him crumbling without Moriarty opposite him, to keep him propped up.

He sighed and frowned.

It looked like the third way, then.

The third way which was only a sliver of a possibility, inspired by something Sebastian had said.

There was a fourth way as well, in which both Moriarty and Sherlock died, but John dismissed that out of hand.

So the third way.

He crouched down over Sherlock and looked at his face, as calm as though he was sleeping.

And then he looked inside him, at all of him, his past and his futures.

A lesser person, perhaps, but Sherlock Holmes is too important to be misplaced.

Too important, those were the words. And Sebastian had been right. Some people, some small handful of people, were always the ones the world warped itself about. They changed things in big ways, drastic ways. They pushed things forward.

There had been Arthur, way back when, the Greek heroes, and other legends, all over the world. Those were the most important, the ones who had changed the world the most. They had become fixed points in time. Sometimes they died bloody, but always they lived on in other ways.

John smiled as he found it. What he had always known was there, but buried under everything else. That tiny little spark that Sherlock refused to acknowledge in the same way he refused to acknowledge tiredness and hunger. That little part of Sherlock that was, no matter what he chose or wanted, a hero all the same.

And then he let go of it, and he let his knowledge of its existence settle into all of him, every part of everything.

And then he stood up and promptly collapsed.

The human body could only take so much, after all.

*

He hated waking up in hospitals. There was always a moment where he forgot who and what he was, before it all came flooding back.

And there was always, in those later decades anyway, the beep of the machines, cutting through everything.

Harry was standing in the corner, looking at him curiously.

“I take it that the world’s still in one piece then,” he said. She laughed.

“Yes, but that’s more than I can say for Sebastian,” she shrugged, “our sister’s been taking it out of him.” There was a fierce glee in her face.

“Good. I’m too tired to deal with him at the moment.”

He closed his eyes and thought, very carefully about one particular person. When he concentrated he could feel the thump of a heart beat in every inch of him.

“He’s still alive,” Harry said, “though we have no idea how you managed that.”

“I didn’t,” John told her, struggling to sit up. He couldn’t quite take the smile off his lips. “He did it all himself.” Harry didn’t look convinced, but John couldn’t bring himself to explain how it was Sherlock’s stubbornness that did most of the hard work, John just gave it something to work with: an idea.

He reachedout a little further, right to the edges of what his human half could deal with at the moment, and he felt Sherlock, rock steady, right in the centre of things, a fixed point in the universe, and other universes too, so steady in his own belief in his own brilliance, so steady in John’s belief in his own brilliance, that he was echoing across everything.

Sherlock Holmes wasn’t just a man anymore, he was an idea. And ideas were difficult to kill.

“You look like you could do with some sleep,” Harry told him, and John nodded, because he couldn’t argue with that. But when he slept he dreamt of ideas and stories and legends, and a little bit, of the future.

*

Mycroft came to see him later, John’s sister in tow.

“My brother is recovering admirably... though I regret that Mr Moriarty has so far evaded us.” John nodded, he knew that. Sebastian got his favoured human out somehow, even with his siblings anger.

“He’s too stubborn to let him get away,” John said and Mycroft nodded. They shared a moment of almost understanding then. It wa a long, hard look, and there was something in Mycroft’s eyes that knew more than he was letting on. It was a worrying feeling, but there was no way he could know. There was no way he could even begin to guess.

“And the world seems to have got past its small... hiccup as well,” Mycroft continued. John glanced at his sister, whose eyes flicked to her employer, filled with something like alarm, before flashing back to John’s.

Neither of them knew the answer, which was more than slightly worrying.

“So all’s right with the world then?” John asked, going for flippant. It came out more desperate.

“Yes, Dr Watson,” Mycroft told him. “Equilibrium has been restored. I knew you’d find a way.”

There was no mistaking that last sentence, none at all. John was on the edge of delving into Mycroft’s mind and wiping his memories when the man continued.

“To save my brother’s life,” he went on. “Sherlock does get involved with things, and I had feared that this Moriarty business would be the straw to break the proverbial camel’s back, as it were.”

“I didn’t do anything,” John replied as a matter of course.

“They said you might not remember,” Mycroft said, nodding. He began to swing the tip of his umbrella up and down. “But the paramedics informed me that you must have performed CPR at the scene before succumbing to your own injuries.”

“Oh,” John nodded. It was as good an idea as any. No one was going to believe the ‘I made him a myth’ line, after all.

“I’d love to stay a little longer,” Mycroft continued. “But I have some pressing matters to attend to. While the world may no longer be ending, it still needs someone to oil the wheels. I’m glad you are awake and without permanent damage, Dr Watson. Perhaps if you and my brother could try to avoid trouble for a while, it might be for the best.”

“I don’t think there’s any power in the universe that could keep Sherlock from trouble,” he replied.

Mycroft just smiled in a way that could have meant ‘ah, my younger brother, how trying he is’ or it could have meant ‘well, you’d know’. It could also have meant ‘I’m going to go and invade a small country’, though, so John still wasn’t sure.

He could have looked. He could have pushed his way into Mycroft’s mind and found out if the man knew but, all in all, if Mycroft did know, then he was not that bothered about it. That was a problem for another day.

His sister smiled at him as she left. It was genuine, and had none of her usual steel behind it. Perhaps humanity was rubbing off on her too.

*

Sherlock was the last to visit, after Lestrade came and spent an awkward few minutes making small talk, before yelling that they should both be put under armed guard until they can work out how to walk down the street without almost being blown up. John took it with a smile and accepted the grapes cheerfully.

He came after Mrs Hudson as well, who looked worried and brought cake. She sat down and they watched their usual crap telly on the tiny screen high in the corner of the room. John liked that the most, he thought, of all the visits, because he actually felt human, all human, for an hour or two. Certainly, there was a part of him that wasn’t sitting there watching television. He was in the paediatrics ward, taking a little boy’s hand, he was in an operating theatre where an older man’s heart gave out half way through an operation, he was in casualty, where a car crash victim lost too much blood.

But he was here as well, in the uncomfortable hospital bed, with wires taped to him, eating a slice of date and walnut cake and watching a woman confront her soon to be ex husband about his affair with her daughter (his stepdaughter). It was probably the best cake he had ever had.

But Sherlock came last, striding in as though he hadn’t been in an explosion only days before. He looked at John, startled for a moment before blinking and shaking his head.

“What is it?”

“Nothing,” Sherlock told him. “I thought... for a second it was like you weren’t there, you were...” he paused, “probably the painkillers. Hallucinations are one of the side effects.”

“What have they got you on?” John asked.

“Nothing interesting. Apparently my brother and Lestrade have been having some very decisive words with the staff about my treatment. This is the first time I’ve been able to get out of my room. The nursing staff are like guard dogs.” John laughed.

“Yeah, they’re good at that,” he agreed. Some of the nurses he had met would have made Sherlock and even his brother look like pushovers.

“I’m bored!” Sherlock announced, flinging himself down into the visiting chair. “I’m not allowed my phone, they confiscated my nicotine patches and Lestrade keeps sending Donovan with cases that aren’t even interesting enough to keep a two year old entertained!”

“And what do you expect me to do about that?” John asked. There wasn’t a reply, but he wasn’t expecting one. Sherlock just kept on talking about the cases, and the incompetency of everyone in the universe but him.

*

Harriet Watson:
I need to meet him
Don’t worry, I promise to behave.

John Watson:
Fine. He hasn’t eaten anything in three days,
you’ll probably do him some good.

*

Harry Watson brought a bottle.

John answered the door with a sigh of longsuffering and took it off her hands. She had barely walked in through the door when Sherlock looked up and stared at her.

“She’s not interested in you,” he said after a second, “you should let it go.” Harry blinked a couple of times then laughed.

“He is good,” she saidys, nudging at John’s side. “I understand what you see in him, Johnny.”

“It’s not like that,” John said for the umpteenth time, though he knew that his little stunt at the pool had somehow bound him and Sherlock together more than he had known was entirely possible. “We’re friends, we share a flat.”

“And a bed?”

“Harry! You said you’d behave!”

“I never said I’d behave well,” she said, unrepentant, but she settled down after that. John headed to the kitchen.

“I’m going to put dinner out,” he informed the room in general. “Sherlock, will you be wanting any?”

“No,” Sherlock said, but then he lookrf up, his face furrowed in confusion and there was the unmistakable sound of his stomach rumbling.

“I’ll take that as a yes, then,” John said with a laugh. He risked a glance at Harry, who just winked, beaming fit to set the world alight.

John had just putting food onto plates when there was another knock at the door. They heard Mrs Hudson answer it and then the familiar tones of Mycroft’s voice. He wasn’t alone.

John glaresd at Harry, who made an exaggerated ‘I didn’t have anything to do with this’ gesture, before they both managed to turn to look at the door. Mycroft entered, his assistant, the sister that Sherlock didn’t know about, at his back, wearing a rather sadistic smile and the sort of red dress that made men want to take over the world.

“Sorry to drop in like this,” Mycroft said, “but I felt sure that Sherlock would sabotage my plans if he knew about them. As you were having Harriet over, I thought it only fair that we have a full family gathering.”

John and Harry both looked at their sister, but she smiled serenely, tapping away at her infernal BlackBerry.

“You’re not welcome,” Sherlock said.

“Calm down, Sherlock,” John told him, huffing a little sigh of exasperation. “I made more than enough food, Mycroft and...” he paused to look at his sister.

“Anita, today, I think.”

“Do you just like the letter A?” he asked.

“Something like that.”

Mycroft smirked a little and John considered wiping his mind again, but really, Mycroft Holmes wasn’t his problem, he had more than enough on his plate just keeping up with Sherlock.

He was half expecting Sebastian to show up, but he didn’t, and the meal went well. Sherlock ate more than John had ever seen him eat before. Even if his elder sister’s presence meant the sibling rivalry kept stirring up a little and Harry had Mycroft off his diet in a matter of seconds. The world was still standing, Sherlock still very much alive, if his impromptu performance of ‘cat squawking’ for violin after dinner was anything to go by and John was in a million different places at once.

But he was also in 221b Baker Street, sitting on a very comfortable sofa and drinking a cup of tea, which was exactly where he wanted to be.

***

Links to the awesome art:

Art by Togsos: Here
Art by Venturous: here

Fic: Sherlock (BBC); Come and See; R

definewisdom — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 22:32:48 GMT

Title: Come and See
Fandom: Sherlock (BBC)
Characters: John Watson, Harriet Watson, "Anthea", Sebastian Moran, Sherlock Holmes, Mycroft Holmes James Moriarty, Cameos by Lestrade and Molly.
Rating: R
Warnings: Mentions of slavery, rape, murder, death, MAJOR supernatural themes, Christian mythology (among others), manipulation of the BBC canon to suit my needs
Author's Note: Written for the sherlockbigbang. This is sort of... weird. And based off a prompt in the sherlockbbc_fic meme: here. Beta work done by the wonderful spotsofcolour. So many thanks to the artists who did an awesome job!

Summary: John Watson is Death. He wasn't supposed to kill the cabbie at the end of A Study in Pink, Sherlock Holmes was supposed to die that night. But Sherlock's still alive and now the world is starting to fall apart. The events of the whole series seen in a slightly more supernatural light. Also featuring "Anthea", Harry and Sebastian as the other horsemen of the apocalypse, and exploring what it takes to become a myth.

LINKS TO ART:
Art by Togsos: Here
Art by Venturous: here

Tom Edwards remembered the gunfire and the explosion. They hadn’t been expecting it, just a routine patrol, but you had to keep your eye out, didn’t you. They’d been driving along and then...

Then all he remembered was the noise and the pain. Pain everywhere, so much of it.

And the blood. He remembered that too, soaking him from the legs upward.

The next thing he remembered was the medical corps working on him. There had still been pain, and still shouting voices, but there had also been a hand wrapped around his, so tight, but he could barely feel it, and a calm face looking right into his eyes as he opened them. The face looked familiar, somehow. He thought that he should be able to put a name to it.

“It’s going to be fine, Tom,” the face had said.

And then he had gone back to sleep.

When he woke up again he felt lighter, clearer, and the pain had gone.

He opened his eyes and found himself staring at the canvas ceiling of the temporary hospital tent he had been brought to.

Everything felt calm. They must have had him on some impressive drugs. He hadn’t thought they carried that sort of thing at field hospitals.

There was a man sitting on the end of the bed, right by Tom’s feet. He was wearing fatigues and he was just sitting, still but not in a dangerous sort of way. The presence of someone else was reassuring. If he hadn’t been there then Tom might have thought...

Tom sat up.

“Hello,” he said. The man turned to him. There was a kind smile in a weary face. The same face that had told him everything was going to be fine. Tom smiled back. “Who are you?” he asked. There was still that feeling of complete ease and familiarity about the man, like he was one of Tom’s best friends.

“Call me John,” the man said.

“Right,” Tom looked around. The tent looked deserted, and there was silence all around. That was... wrong. There was never silence, not even in the middle of the night, and the hospital tent should have patients in it after an explosion like that, and nurses and doctors. Not just him and John sitting on a bed in the corner. “Where is everyone?” he asked.

“They’re fine,” John said, looking out over the expanse of emptiness.

“Then why aren’t they here?” Tom asked.

“They don’t belong here,” John said. Tom swung himself into a sitting position on the side of the bed and looked down at his legs.

“Thank God,” he said, running his hands over them. “I thought I’d lost them.” He thought about it for a moment. “They’re fine... they shouldn’t.” His head felt thick and clouded. There was something wrong here. His legs weren’t hurt. There weren’t even bandages. He wasn’t in some ridiculous hospital gown or naked, he was in his uniform. “How...?”

John’s hand reached out to his shoulder and squeezed it gently.

“We couldn’t save you,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

Tom gaped at him for a long moment. The words made sense, but his head couldn’t process them somehow.

“I’m...” he said.

“Sorry about that,” John said again. “But don’t worry. It’ll all be fine, I promise.”

“Who are you then?” Tom asked.

“I’m what comes next,” John said. There was a momentary pause while the meaning of that slowly sank into Tom’s consciousness. Then John spoke again: “look at me.” Tom didn’t know why, but he did. He looked at John, right into his eyes, which were still watching him so carefully. Then he seemed to see something deeper, something right inside them, like a light or a spark. He stared, trying to make out what it was. There was so much darkness there too, but the light was so bright, so very bright.

John Watson sighed and stood up from the bed, looking down at the dead man who lay there. Sometimes he wanted to strangle his sister.

*

John Watson was born, in an entirely normal birth, to Mr and Mrs Watson, who were as normal a couple as it is possible to be.

There were no plagues of toads. There was no thunder, it was in fact a perfectly nice day.

And John, to all intents and purposes, seemed a perfectly nice child.

But inside his head, that was where things weren’t quite so normal.

Oscar Wilde once had one of his characters say that people should know either nothing or everything. John Watson was born knowing everything and it almost drove him insane.

His first words were in ancient Hebrew and roughly translated to “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” It is probably lucky that his parents dismissed this as childish burbling.

It took him another two months to sort the languages that teemed through his small skull out and decide which one was the right one to use.

His next first word was “see” which was, intentionally, a lot less worrying.

John knew, from the first moment he looked at his mother, that she was going to die. For as long as he could remember he knew the precise moment at which her death would come. And he could remember a long, long time before that.

It was like that with everyone. He would look at them and know their lives, their thoughts their feelings and their death. He could see every good part of them and every bad part of them and he could understand.

The mortal part of him almost broke.

His parents and teachers were worried by the pictures he would draw sometimes, grand vistas of stars or huge swirls of colour, which never seemed to stay within the boundaries of the page.

“You’ve got paint all over the table,” his reception teacher complained. Looking at John’s attempt at drawing his family. John had looked up at her, always a strangely serious child, and told her that the paper was too small.

“Then make them smaller,” she suggested, kneeling down. She was upset, John could see it. He could see her life, stretching out before her and after her.

“You can’t make things smaller than they are,” he said.

“Okay.” She paused, “why don’t you tell me about what you’ve drawn then. Is this your Mummy?”

John looked down at where her finger pointed at a huge smear of red paint.

“That’s my sister,” he told her.

“Is this your Daddy?” she asked next, pointing at the huge black smear on the other side.

“That’s my brother,” he told her again.

“I didn’t know you had brothers and sisters, John.”

“I do and I don’t,” he told her with the sort of grave expression that always makes adults smile indulgently.

“They don’t have any faces,” she pointed out after a second.

“They don’t need faces,” he told her.

“Of course not.”

*

There were always two parts to John, he knew that. There was the one who went to school and went home and ate his peas like a good boy, and there was the other part, the part that was old and saw Mrs Pargeter across the road die surrounded by her cats. That John was so big that there was no beginning to him and there was no end – he stretched out forever, reaching forward and forward until the sun died and beyond that, until the last star in the universe extinguished.

That him, the one that would be there at the end of everything, smiled at Mrs Pargeter and held out his hand to her when she woke up and stepped out of her body.

“John, is it?” she said, peering down at him. “From over the road; the Watsons’ little boy. What are you doing here?”

John, little John who was not big and calm and everywhere, knew that he wasn’t there at all, he was in bed, across the street, curled into a ball. But then... he was also here, and there, and everywhere.

Other John, the John who understood how they could be in two places at once, smiled.

“It’s time to go home,” he said.

“Yes dear,” she told him. “I should think it probably is. It must be well past your bedtime. It’s past my bed time too. Shall I take you back then?” She reached out and took his hand in hers.

John felt calm spread out across every inch of him and then Mrs Pargeter was gone apart from her body. But that lump of flesh and bone wasn’t Mrs Pargeter at all, not anymore.

*

A human brain was too small to handle omniscience. It was too much, it clawed at the sides and ripped it apart. John knew that people before him, people whose lives he could remember living, had gone mad with it.

So he wasn’t surprised when he met himself in his dream. He had known it was coming.

They stood in the chamber of a pyramid. The walls were lined with hieroglyphics, and John read them as he looked around, with the same ease with which he could read the children’s books in the local library.

They told a story, the story of a man who was a god, who was betrayed and torn to pieces, only to be resurrected again.

He knew the story, in the same way he knew everything, but also on another level. It felt... personal.

“It is an aspect of your own story. Every myth of the afterlife is,” his other self said.

He couldn’t see the other part of himself, but he knew he was there. He didn’t need to see him because he was everything.

“You need to rip me up, like him,” he said slowly.

“Not quite.”

“I don’t want to be mad,” John told himself quietly. His voice echoed around the chamber.

“Don’t worry.”

There was a strange sensation then, which John couldn’t find a word for in any of the languages of the earth, not the living ones or the dead ones, and then after that, he felt...

Not empty. Emptiness would imply that there was space left. He felt whole and only whole. He looked at the hieroglyphics going round the walls and he couldn’t understand them so easily any more. The knowledge was there, but he had to reach for it, he had to want it.

“Thank you,” he said. There wasn’t a reply.

*

When John Watson was shot, he could honestly say that he didn’t want to die. There was no peaceful afterlife for him, no gateway to the other side. It was his job to guide the others through and the price for that was to experience death in all its horror and suffering, but never reach the other side.

He had died as a baby and as a child. He had died of old age, half a dozen times and he had died as a young man fighting wars that were not his to fight. And he would die in all of those ways again. He was not spared one instant of the suffering or the pain, he felt as mortals felt and he suffered as mortals suffered.

His brother had always pitied him that. His sisters were just confused.

He was the eldest and the youngest, another little paradox of his existence.

And when the bullet hit his shoulder and he felt it go deep, deep in. He prayed.

Please God, let me live.

Ironic, wasn’t it?

*

Harriet Watson did not exist. Not in any official or true capacity. If anyone had looked for records of her birth or her early life, then they would have found nothing.

The woman in white, who would become Harry Watson, turned up on John’s eighth birthday with a cake. No one questioned her presence and John beamed at her, though everyone headed almost immediately towards the buffet table.

John ignored the sudden rush for the finger sandwiches and hugged his sister round the waist.

She paused, a little taken back, then hugged him back.

“Good to see you again,” she said into his hair.

*

A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil or the wine.

Harry came to visit him in hospital. After Afghanistan (the latest Afghanistan, that was).

Harry was the sort of tiny that was called petite when people are being polite. She had looked exactly the same for the past seven thousand years and more. John knew every quirk of her eyebrow and every swish of her hair.

She too was a paradox. They all were when it came to that. She was restraint and she was indulgence. That was the problem with the drinking.

When she came to the hospital she stood in the doorway and watched him.

“There’s a ward upstairs where they keep the people with eating disorders,” she said. John nodded.

“I know.”

“I’m not going up there,” she said firmly. “Clara...”

“How is she?” John asked.

“The same, always the same. Every day it’s the same. We don’t change, John. I’m so bored.”

“You’ve been drinking again,” he said, sighing. She glared at him.

“You don’t know what it’s like!” She snapped, suddenly seeming to take up all the space in the room. “You’re always so wise, or you think you are, but really you’re just a fool!” The words were spat from her mouth like bullets. “Nothing changes for us, only for you, and you go off and get yourself shot like you don’t even care.”

“I went off and got myself shot because I care,” John said. It was impossible to try and explain it to her. There was something too human about the idea. She would never be able to unpick it. Instead, he changed the subject. “Harry, you don’t look good.”

“Liar,” she said, “I look exactly the same as when you left. You look old, little brother.”

“I’m older than you,” John pointed out, wincing as she shuffle of his shoulders moved his IV.

“Only metaphysically.” Harry wrapped a strand of hair around a finger, looking down at it thoughtfully. “I asked the others if they wanted to come and see you but they didn’t.”

“It’s fine,” John said. Harry just glared at him again.

“Nothing’s ever fine,” she said. “We make sure of that.” There was another awkward pause as she looked around the sterile white room and pretended that she needed to breathe. “I’m leaving Clara.”

“What? Why?” he pulled himself upright. “I thought...”

“I’m bored.” Harry told him with a shrug.

“You love her...”

“It’s not the same for us as it is for you. Love. It’s such a mortal thing.”

“You can love too,” John said. He had seen her with Clara, seen her happy and caring.

“What would you know about it?” she asked, bitter, tightening the hair around her finger so hard it looked painful. “You’re practically mortal.” She frowned and the sighed, coming up to take his hand. Her own was fine-boned and tiny. She never put on an ounce of weight. An unrealistic ideal of beauty, that was his sister, making people want. Everyone around her wanted something – or wanted for something – and they never quite realised the difference. “Sorry John. It’s just... I wish I knew what it was like, sometimes, to change, to grow old.”

“Bitter,” he said, thinking to himself. She nodded.

John’s other sister and their brother were completely absent – on the physical plane, anyway. They were never absent really and the hospital smell pressed his brother close in around him, like he could hear his mocking laugh.

*

The crusades had been a family get together, of a sort.

All of them crammed into one place. They had met up in one of the filthy tavern tents and John’s brother had laughed.

He hadn’t been called Sebastian back then, something a little longer and with an air of sticky ichor about it. John hadn’t been called John, either. He had been a foot soldier in King Richard’s army. It was strange, but almost every time he was born British he ended up in the Middle East. Not that it had been Britain back then, not really.

The place had been disgusting and the men had fought desperately over his older sister, one sitting on another’s chest and beating his brains into the floor.

They had looked at Harry, whose name had not been Harry, and they had drunk their fill and drunk it twice over, downing the piss poor ale in gulps.

And Sebastian had laughed, and John had thought this is life, how I hate it. But that had been the 12th century. Things had changed since then, no matter what Harry said.

They never saw their brother, for one. He had sloped off into the shadows back when the dates had changed from 1800s to 1900s. He met up with their elder sister most often though, but she never talked about it. She never talked about much. He and John coincided, sometimes, but they never spoke.

His other sister had changed too in a strange sort of way. She had used to be all about the action, getting down into it, fighting with a fierce smile on her face. She had been at John’s side throughout the years. Throughout the centuries, but recently she had become detached, aloof, clinical. She no longer had that almost savage intensity, but a silent, deadly efficiency.

And Harry had become marginalised. John knew she felt it. Shoved to third world countries and the backs of people’s minds. She wasn’t talked of, often, left out like the unwelcome tagger-on at a birthday party who no one really knew, but no one was quite brave enough to kick out. But that was not entirely true, because somewhere along the way she has also become glamorous and idealised. She was torn two ways more than any of the rest of them were. It was starting to hurt her and starting to show. When you saw her out of the corner of your eye she looked emaciated, when you saw her straight on she looked beautiful.

John didn’t believe she didn’t change, he did believe that she didn’t see it.

Of all of them John knew, he was the one that never changed. He was the same as ever. Same as last year and the same as last century. His face changed, his body aged, he had lived a hundred lives or more, but in the end, after his siblings changed and grew, he remained the same.

Always. Unchanging. Certain.

*

There was a gun in the drawer of the desk. It sat like a song in his mind, made up of the same four chords, like the bass guitar line had got stuck there. It sat and he knew every inch of it, he knew it on levels that not even the man who had created it had known it. Not even the man who had designed it. He knew its history, knew every life it had taken, knew its cold, hard purpose.

Knew that it was peace as well as war.

His eyes strayed to it every day thinking ‘start over, start again, go back to the beginning and maybe it’ll be better.’

He took out his laptop instead, stared at it. That had never existed before: new technology, making life “easier”, and a blog.

What to write… But how to write something new about a world that never changed. He sighed and closed it up again.

*
Italy 1507

Come and see

“The whore in the corner’s got syphilis,” his brother said as soon as John – not John at this point, but as good a name as any - walked in. “I’d give her a miss if I were you.” John looked at her and saw her death hanging over her like a storm cloud. She was leaning towards a young man, nervous and bright, his first time being propositioned like that and John watched his hands tighten and relax on the fabric of his breeches, unsure what to do with his hands.

“Isn’t life wonderful?” his brother said, watching as the prostitute took the young man’s hand and led him out the back door. “In all its putrescence and filth.”

“I tend to think it’s wonderful in spite of it,” John hazarded. “Why did you call me here?”

“You’ve been absent,” his brother said. “We worried.”

“Of all the things on this world that you could worry about, I am the least worth your time,” John said with a small smile. His brother snorted.

“I know, but you know how Harry is. She always wants what she can’t have.”

“And what she can have,” John added.

“Are you going to stay here, then?” Sebastian asked, looking around. “You never have any fun with it.”

“It’s not fun,” John said. “It’s work.”

“So dull, so boring, big brother. Your mortality’s showing.”

“So is your lack of soul.”

A voice called John by his human name, his Italian name. He smiled at the man but Sebastian sneered.

*

Sherlock Holmes was surrounded by death; it was a strange mixture of intoxicating and shocking. John walked into the room and he could see it, clinging to him but not touching him. He took a second to swallow down the shock. How was the man so immersed in it and yet so-

“Afghanistan or Iraq?” And then John’s mind was taken to other things.

*

John walked into the crime scene and knew everything about the woman. He already knew her better than any person she had ever known. She had not been perfect, no one was, but she was human. Then he watched Sherlock dissect her with his eyes and it was brilliant and insane. Because no human should be able to learn so much from look and touch alone. No human should be able to see that clearly.

He couldn’t help the sense of awe, because in millennia on this planet there had been nothing that surprised him, but Sherlock Holmes did it every second and he didn’t even understand what he was doing

Then he was left in the dust as Sherlock took off, making leaps that even John couldn’t follow. He didn’t know what was so important about the colour pink, and that was amazing.

His leg might not be up to the walk back, but he wasn’t worried. Patience was part of him, and he would catch up in the end, he always did.

*

And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth

His sister was a surprise, in as much as anything ever was. He saw her sitting across the car and was genuinely happy to see her, glued to technology as she always was these days. She looked the same, too. Never wrinkled, never faded, always the face that launched a thousand ships.

Christopher Marlowe would never know how right he had got it.

When they reached their destination, John looked at Mycroft Holmes and understood. Through mortal eyes he looked like a well dressed, slightly creepy business man, in John’s other sight, red lightning flickered from his fingers and his umbrella became a sword, sharper than any John had ever seen. But his head was... calm, ordered, logical.

This was how his sister evolved.

*

In the beginning she had been teeth and claws, needing nothing but her hands.

Then she had worn skins, or blue war paint, daubed on in intricate whorls and patterns that meant death to anyone close enough to admire them. She had been savage and she had been beautiful.

Then, for such a very long time, she had carried a sword, a blade which never rusted, broke or blunted. She had carried it for centuries and it had been covered in so much blood that the metal had taken on a reddish tinge.

Then, when the age of swords had fallen, as all ages do, she had taken up a gun: a pistol, a rifle, a revolver. She had carried them and felt the weight of them in her hand and seen the glint of the light on the barrel, as cold as the glint of moon on snow.

These days she carried a Blackberry, and she didn’t really notice a difference.

*

Sherlock Holmes was infatuated with death. That was the fascination right there, he revelled in it, explored it and embraced it. John couldn’t help being drawn to it, tugged towards that adoration like a moth to a flame.

Ask the Greek Gods: worship is more addictive than any nectar or ambrosia.

So John followed after him and went when he called because he couldn’t imagine not doing so.

*

Read Revelation Chapter 6 and you find where they found their names, in the sketched out words of a mad man or a drunkard.

Not really though, because the only one of them called by name was John and he gave up using the appellation years, decades, lifetimes ago.

It was on Sebastian that opinion shifted. Not even his siblings knew his nature, though John sometimes thought that he might.

He called himself the conqueror, loving the taste of the words in the book. The world would call him Pestilence, but he was more than that, so much more. Plague came in many forms, and evil infected more surely than anything else, spreading as quickly as any disease.

There were those who called him anti-Christ. Sebastian laughed and John shook his head, but made no comment. None of it mattered. He would be there at Sebastian’s end as he would be there at the end of everything else.

*

In the moment he looked through the window John could see the next few minutes.

He could see Sherlock and the cabbie standing facing each other, he watched Sherlock hold the pill up to the light. He saw the man put the pill in his mouth and he saw him die.

The next soul on his list would be Sherlock Holmes.

Fate ruled all things, even him. There had been a reason he was sent into the wrong building. This was the end. He had no power to alter what was written down in books written in languages too old for even him to read.

Some things are set in stone and he has never been the executioner, just the basket below the guillotine, collecting the heads.

But he was mortal too.

And mortality had the gift of choice, free will.

So John took the shot and changed the world, just a little bit, and the world shook around him.

*

On another plane entirely, John Watson approached the soul of the cabbie. The man was looking at him curiously.

“Who are you then?”

“I’m here to take you to what happens next,” John said. He held out his hand and waited calmly.

“What?” the man stared at his hand suspiciously. “What’s the game?”

“No game. Not anymore. Now there’s just me.” John shrugged.

“But I’m dead,” the man said, his hand reaching up to his shoulder, his face looking down to where he was lying on the floor.

“Yes,” John agreed, “that’s the general idea.”

“Someone shot me.”

“That would be me,” John told him, raising his eyebrows and drawing in a breath of something that wasn’t air, not on this plane.

“But if you’re...” the cabbie looked him up and down. “What happens now?”

“Don’t worry about it,” John said.

“Is there a hell?”

“Sorry,” John smiled, a little shark like, “can’t tell you that.”

The man reached out and took his hand and John knew every inch of him, he could feel it inside him for a moment, like a bright spike of light and clarity. It almost made him sick, it almost made him sad. It almost made him feel.

*

Anthea wasn’t her real name, her real name was a lot shorter, but Anthea would do for now. They tended to pull on names as easily as they did coats, apart from John, John who was always different, whose names were given to him by mortals every lifetime.

She was unimpressed, he could tell. She was pretending he didn’t exist, which was always a fair sign of disapproval. Although right now it might just be because she didn’t want Mycroft to catch on. But it was more likely that she was angry.

She knew... She was the next oldest after all and she knew exactly what he had just done.

*

Unknown Number:
Universal balance compromised.

John Watson:
Half-Mortal.

Harriet Watson:
What did you do this time, sis?

Unknown Number:
Not me. John. He saved his newest fling.

John Watson:
He’s not a fling. And I’m half-mortal.
Mortals have free will.

Unknown Number:
That’s only incidental. You don’t.
You could have torn a hole in
the fabric of the Universe.

John Watson:
Universe still standing,
unless I’m really missing
something.

Harriet Watson:
I thought you gave up on
romance after Elizabeth died.
Spill!

John Watson:
That was four hundred years ago.
And it’s not like that.

*

Chinese food with Sherlock Holmes, after shooting a man and possibly destroying the universe.

John had never felt quite like this. It was a strange heady feeling as though anything were possible. There was a part of him (a big, world-crushing part of him) which was trying to remind him that there was more at work here than his petty little life. John ignored it.

He had seen fate and he had changed it. Across the table, Sherlock made some comment about a man’s shoes or a woman’s bag and John couldn’t help but laugh. This was what it felt like to be alive properly, he thought to himself. This was how it must feel to be human.

“So,” Sherlock said after the giggling died down. “An army doctor and a high functioning sociopath walk into a Chinese takeaway. It sounds like one of those mind-numbing jokes.”

“It sounds a little crazy,” John told him, unable to resist the pull of a grin.

“Most interesting things are,” Sherlock told him.

John couldn’t help but agree.

*

Sherlock Holmes was not meant to live.

John hadn’t been back to his home – his real home – for years. It was still there though, as unchanged as he himself. There was a room there with a book, a big book. It wasn’t the book, just a translation of it, everything that John needed to know and no more.

It wrote itself.

He opened it up, lifting the huge cover and the millions of pages as though they were nothing. And then he read.

Sherlock Holmes lifts the pill up to the light...

Then the writing became messy, writing over writing. John saw both layers as clear as day.

Sherlock Holmes dies. One line said, and over the top of it was written Sherlock Holmes lives.

His sister wasn’t going to like that.

*

John Watson:
Fabric of universe might be
slightly frayed.

*

“You’ve been pacing all evening,” Sherlock said from the sofa. He had both eyes closed. “You should take the same approach as I do with Mycroft.”

“How did you know I was thinking about…” John trailed off and shook his head. It was still bizarre and amazing that something like him, even with his mortality, could be read so easily by Sherlock. “What approach is that?”

“Ignore him and let him get on with ruining everybody else’s lives.”

“Yes well,” John drew in a sharp breath. There was no point telling Sherlock that it wasn’t quite that simple. He might be able to read John’s familial difficulties in the way his hand curled around his phone or how many paces he made before he turned around, but he couldn’t possibly understand that in this case ignoring the problem and hoping it went away would just make things worse.

He’d upset the universal balance. It was an elementary error. It was the sort of thing that was so basic that it came right along with learning how to breathe.

“Your agitation is distracting my train of thought,” Sherlock continued. “If you must obsess over your sister’s alcoholism then please take it elsewhere.”

John gaped at him for a long second. Finally Sherlock opened an eye and looked at him, his brow furrowing.

“Was that tactless?” he asked. If John had tried he could have worked out whether it was genuine innocence or cultivated sarcasm, but he couldn’t be bothered. He glared at Sherlock. “Right,” his flatmate said, closing his eyes again and nodding to himself, “tactless.”

The worst part, John thought as he stormed out of the room and up the staircase to his own bedroom, where he fully intended to pace as noisily as possible, was that he still didn’t regret it. He remembered Lestrade’s words: if we’re very lucky, then maybe one day he’ll be a good one.

Sherlock should never have got the chance, and John had given that to him. He felt worried and angry at Sherlock’s complete disregard for him, but he also felt a little proud.

He forgot to pace and sat on the edge of his bed, staring at the wall and remembering how much simpler everything was when he just didn’t care.

*

The Battle of the Somme – 1916

John is called Gregor and he is dying.

He wears the uniform of the German army proudly, or he had when he had been in the trenches that morning, walking through the inches of water on the ground and gulping down what little food they had.

He feels cold and he knows this feeling. He can feel his life slip-sliding away.

She is sitting next to him, looking as beautiful and radiant as ever. The sun is setting and she is painted red by its light.

“Time to start again,” he says. She nods, looking out over the field she has created with satisfaction. The words hurt. “I wish I...”

“What’s it like?” she asks. She doesn’t sound upset. Her brother lies next to her bleeding into the mud, not that anyone would ever be able to tell what was blood and what was mud, not anymore. He feels angry at that, so angry. She can’t possibly understand.

“It’s like hell,” he tells her.

“I’ve never been to hell,” she tells him, finally turning to look at him. She looks perplexed, not worried or sorry or even concerned, just puzzled.

“You’re sitting in it.”

Those are the last words Gregor Eichel will ever say.

His sister looks at his body, still frowning in confusion, before looking out again.

“This isn’t hell,” she says to herself, embracing the strange calm that always comes after a battle. “This is me.”

*

Somewhere out there the threads of reality were fraying and the fabric of time was ripping itself to shreds. Somewhere out there everything was crashing to the ground and beginning to spiral in on itself.

If John let himself, he could feel it, on the edge of his consciousness, like he could feel everything else – the whole of time and space. He could feel it spreading away from him and then there was… nothing.

But in Baker Street everything was strangely normal, as normal as life could be with Sherlock Holmes, that was. There was a dog skull in the kitchen sink, splatters of pig’s blood drying on an old sheet (John’s old sheet) over the fireplace, but there was breakfast (scrambled eggs, bacon and toast, John had cooked in far less hygienic kitchens than that before, after all, even in this lifetime) and there were newspapers and there was a strange companionable silence as Sherlock looked over one of the latest forensics journals and scribbled out the parts that were wrong and underlined the ones requiring further study.

“Wishful thinking,” he would mutter to himself every now and then. “Blatantly untrue.” And, when something was too bad even to merit a two word response he would just exclaim “wrong!” followed by a dramatic scribbling which threatened to tear right through the paper. John found that he was more often watching Sherlock than he was reading the paper.

He didn’t have to do it with his eyes, he could watch Sherlock without the other man knowing a thing about it, but he wanted to because, in a way that nothing else ever has been, Sherlock is his.

It was a rather worrying thought, so he looked back down at his paper again and reread the same article fifteen times, until he had it memorised, and drowned out the sound of Sherlock’s next “Wrong!” by thinking about infinity.

*

The thing about death is that people live with it constantly. Humanity, mortality, can’t put it to one side because it is always there. Death is the reason people change, the reason people fight, the reason people do. Because knowing there’s an end means that you can feel the timer ticking down.

It’s a patch of coldness right inside your soul. I’m not going to live forever. And it makes you act.

Sherlock Holmes knew death. He accepted it, he embraced it. It was probably the most terrifying thing about him. And now, he had cheated it.

Well... he had cheated fate and, if anything, that was a little worse.

*

Harriet Watson:
Hope springs eternal

Unknown Number:
No, it really doesn’t.

*

The first thing you need to understand is that John was (is/will be) everywhere, all the time: ubiquitous, omnipresent and eternal. There is nowhere on earth that can escape him. There is nowhere you can hide. He knows the answer to Schrodinger’s cat, but he won’t ever tell.

This couldn’t be true, obviously, because he had a mortal life and a mortal shape, but it’s only a paradox if you let it be a paradox. You need to know that there are two planes of existence (more than two, but that over complicates matters) there is the plane on which he is John Watson, quietly ordinary doctor and ex-army man, colleague of Sherlock Holmes, and then there is the other plane.

John Watson was standing next to Sherlock Holmes looking down at a body.

The other him was (is/will be) everywhere, of course, but he was also currently standing by Sherlock Holmes, who couldn’t see him even a little bit, and holding out his hand to a young girl who looked utterly terrified.

“He...” she said, looking at John. She couldn’t finish the sentence, but she didn’t have to.

“I know,” he told her, smiling a little sadly. “But he can’t hurt you anymore, believe me.”

“Who are you?” She asked, but she took his hand anyway. She was trembling like a leaf. “You’ve got to tell them, they have to know what he... what he did. He needs to be stopped.”

“Don’t worry,” John said, completely calm. “He will be.”

“How do you know?” she asked.

“You see the man standing next to me?” John asked. She turned a little and squinted.

“Sort of. The tall one with the dark hair.”

“He’s going to find him and he’s going to catch him.”

“How do you know?” she asked again, still staring at the strange ghost of Sherlock that existed on this plane.

“Because I know him. Look at me, Jessica.” She turned and she looked into John’s eyes.

There was a sound like a sigh and Jessica had gone.

On the mortal plane John drew in a deep breath and watched Sherlock begin to pace. His eyes followed him carefully, but he didn’t say anything.

*

Mycroft Holmes’ office was a haven of efficiency. It was all clean lines and clear surfaces.

The top of his desk was the sort of tidy that had two possible reasons for existing. The first reason was that the owner was so efficient that he never let anything stay there long enough to settle, the second, that the owner was so lazy that he never let anything get there in the first place.

People usually assume the second reason at first. The discovery of their mistake was often a terrible shock to the system.

Mycroft could even look the part of the lazy, laid back, bureaucrat, who had found his niche on the promotion ladder – just high enough to delegate, but not high enough for the big decisions. It was a role he played to perfection.

Of course, he had no idea that his assistant had an even deeper disguise.

That might all change, though, if what she thought was happening was happening – and it was, because she was never mistaken about things like this.

The first calls came in at four am. She didn’t sleep, had never seen the point when there was so much to do all the time. This was probably her favourite job of all the ones she had ever had, and she had been Queens and politicians over the years. She had married the most influential men in the world and, without a single exception, they have all died before their time.

But this was the first time that her job had been so... efficient.

Mycroft Holmes would probably die of a ripe old age in an armchair sipping at a glass of brandy. He would die with a smile on his face and the knowledge that he did what had to be done to the best of his ability. He would probably also die responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people. But he would never have even got a drop of blood on the toes of his very expensive shoes.

And she helped him with that.

It was a thing of beauty to watch.

Or it would be if she weren’t absolutely sure that it was about to end.

The first sign came from the deep south of America. People were reporting grave robberies. The strangest thing though, was that the graves seemed to be opening from the inside out.

Mycroft laughed it off as superstitious nonsense, but he was too smart not to keep an eye on it, and Anthea was too aware of the facts not to worry.

This was only the beginning. The balance was... swaying.

*

John Watson:
He caught a serial rapist today.
Tell me I shouldn’t have saved him.

Unknown Number:
You shouldn’t have saved him.

John Watson:
You could do with a little mortality
of your own.

Unknown Number:
And you need to remember the rules.

*

Anthea dreamt of blood.

She saw a world dyed red with it, soaked in it. There was a sword in her hand as she stalked the battlefield and there was the pulse of a drumbeat in her ears. Screams were like symphonies to her.

Harry dreamt of empty bottles.

She had drunk it all already and there was nothing else. She remembered deserts and pharaoh dreams; years of plenty, years of starvation. She dreamt of nothing, but she wanted everything and hunger clawed at her rib cage. She lifted one of the bottles up and drained the tiniest final drop out of it. It hung on the lip of the glass, clinging on stubbornly. It never dropped.

Sebastian, wherever he was, dreamt of darkness.

It spread out in front of him, oozing forwards, swallowing up the light. It was glorious, rich and black. There was no shine to it, no reflection, though if you looked carefully you could see every colour of the rainbow, like the iridescence on an oil spill. He walked through it, ran his fingers through it and he was it. He always woke with a smile on his face.

John dreamt of everything.

*

Sherlock Holmes had danced with death since he was old enough to understand the metaphor. There was nothing so sweet as the taste of living, and there was no better way to taste living than to see death.

He loved its mystery, its completeness.

When he was four he found a dead hedgehog in the middle of the road. The tyre tracks of the car that had squashed it were still visible on its entrails.

When he was nine he saw his first dead human.

When he was twelve he saw his first murder victim.

When he was seventeen he watched someone die for the first time.

He had built his life around those events.

John knew this. He kept it deep inside of him like a secret, because in so many, many ways. Ways which made the mortal in him so bloody terrified, Sherlock Holmes was his. He had belonged to John since he was born.

John Watson couldn’t leave if he wanted to.

It was not fun to be born as he was, to have everything inside your head. Everything is the biggest word there is, bigger than universe and eternity and infinite. Everything is everything, everything that ever was and is and ever will be; everything in this universe and the next universe and the one after that. It’s enough to drive a human mad. So he tried not to think about it. He had so many levels of thought. He didn’t let his mortal mind dip into the deeper levels, the ones that knew the end of every star. That was the only explanation he could think of for why he never saw Sherlock coming.

And now he couldn’t look away.

*

Sarah was the sort of woman John fell for in every lifetime. She was kind and no-nonsense and she reminded him of them all.

He didn’t think anyone else would appreciate the fact that she reminded him of a dozen dead women, but he did. He smiled at her and knew that this was what had been supposed to happen.

He had to feel every aspect of life to understand it properly. He had to know love, laughter and happiness to understand how it felt to have it dragged away. His wives always died young.

Sherlock shouldn’t be there. But John saved him and he was.

He felt strangely like he was living two lives and then he remembered the words written over words in the book and knew: he was.

Something had to break.

When he managed to redirect the arrow he thought, for a second, that it was over, that everything was over. But then his human brain caught up with his other brain and he knew that Sherlock Holmes’ heart was still beating. Sarah was alive too. And John was not sure whether to laugh or to cry.

*

And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.

The whole of the city of Tokyo went silent for half an hour.

It was not the sort of thing that you could cover up, though Mycroft Holmes was putting up a very good fight.

It wasn’t just the people either, it was everything. True, pure silence. She couldn’t even imagine it. Noise was in her nature and a world without it was...

She shivered and smiled politely as Mycroft inquired as to whether the office was too cold.

“No, sir. I’m fine,” she said, before turning back to running interference.

“What could possibly have caused it?” Mycroft asked to himself as much as to anyone else. He had never expressed a lack of knowledge before. It was almost worrying. If she could feel worry.

*

Unknown Number:
Family meeting. 12 noon.
Usual place.

*

Pompeii - 79 AD

The ash cloud was growing as they walked the streets; just John and his brother – or Marcus and Titus as they were at this moment in time.

“You can taste it on the air, can’t you?” Titus, who would later call himself Sebastian, said. He smiled at some small children in the street. They were playing a hopping game. Marcus saw the past time echo through history. “It’s coming. We’re coming.”

John sighed. They were only here in their metaphysical forms. Marcus’s life did not end at this eruption. Marcus was in Rome at the moment, listening to orators in the forum. When the volcano erupted in four hours time, he would fall to his knees with the shock of it, and that night he would cry himself to sleep.

“They’re so blind to it,” Sebastian said. “So stupid. It’s going to be amazing.”

“It is what it is,” John said. His face did not even flicker with emotion. “Nothing more, nothing less.”

“They’ll call it a tragedy in years to come,” Sebastian continued.

“Words,” John said... except he wasn’t John yet, he was so far from John. At this point he just was. “Meaningless.”

*

No one had seen Sebastian in over a century.

Personally John was grateful. Thousands of years of his brother’s company were thousands of years too many. His brother didn’t just do his job, he loved it. Anthea embraced her work, she had a taste for it, but she didn’t relish it the same way Sebastian did.

Harry, well Harry was Harry and she no doubt always would be.

There were two scenes here and to understand properly you need to see both.

On the mortal plane John Watson sat down opposite Harriet Watson in a café. At a table nearby a familiar woman in a perfectly cut suit was sipping espresso and typing never-endingly onto a BlackBerry.

On the other plane, there was a table which expanded to seat anyone who needed to sit at it. At the moment it was quite small. There were four chairs pulled up to it, though they would be better referred to as thrones.

The first throne was made of bones, all bleached to a shade of white that didn’t exist in mortal minds. The woman sitting on it, if woman it was, was the definition of the word ‘want’. She had a curious androgynous beauty and she was dressed all in white, pure, brilliant white which would hurt the eyes of any human who could see it – not that any could.

To the right of her there was a throne of metal, its back was spiked, like the teeth of a saw or the points of a spear. Looking at it you could hear machines working, clanking, and at the very tips of the spikes the metal was rust brown. Just looking at it leaft a nasty taste in the mouth, metallic and dusty, like old blood.

Sitting on it, there was a woman, as beautiful as the first but in a very different way. She wore red like the colour was made for her, a femme fatale of the oldest kind. Her eyes were red too, and if you looked at them for too long they seemed to burn. Her fingernails were long and the same brilliant red shade as her dress. When you were not looking at them directly, they looked more like talons.

To the right of the metal chair, going round the table, there was a black throne. It stood empty but the chair itself had such a large presence that you couldn’t imagine it not existing. The black was true black and it seemed to suck in light. It also seemed to be coated in some form of oil, which drip – drip - dripped from the arms, making a puddle of pure darkness on the floor. It was impossible to even glance at this chair without going cold, and the ooze of the oil turned the stomach.

Completing the circle, to the right of the black throne, another chair sat. It was made of plain wood, the varnish of which seemed to have worn off with use, leaving it smooth and unmarked. It was nothing more or less than an old chair and it gave every appearance of being terribly comfortable. Looking at it would bring back memories of your favourite armchair, or your godmother’s rocking chair.

John Watson sat in it, looking no more or less remarkable than he had ever done. Except, when you looked into his eyes, you could see the universe.

In the cafe in London, Harry Watson poked her brother in the arm.

“So, tell me about your boyfriend,” she teased.

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

In the throne room, the red lady held up a hand and silence fell.

“It is not our place to change the fates of men,” she said, and in her voice there was the sound of every dying soldier’s final prayer.

“I couldn’t let him die,” John Watson said angrily.

“Our brother would say that your human side has corrupted you,” she went on.

“Well he’s a prick,” the woman in white announced. Her siblings turned to look at her. “What? Just because we’re not on the mortal plane doesn’t mean he’s not a prick.”

“Whatever your opinions of our brother, that’s not what we’re here to discuss.”

In a cafe in London, John sighed deeply and looked down into a cup of tea. He liked tea, it was soothing and brought back memories of a dozen lifetimes. Tea was uncomplicated.

“So when do I get to meet him?” Harry asked.

In the throne room there was the sound of thunder.

“You know how it works,” the lady in red said across the table, leaning forward towards her brother. “You can’t change one thing and expect everything to go on as usual. Sherlock Holmes is supposed to be dead.”

“Look, I’ll sort it out,” John said. “It’ll be fine.”

“If you don’t, I will.”

“And what will your employer think of that?” John asked.

“He will never know.”

In the cafe, the woman in the corner stood up and walked out, her eyes never leaving the screen of her BlackBerry. Harry Watson grinned a little wider than was necessary.

“Must be a really impressive person if he’s making you mess things up,” she said.

“How’s Clara?” John asked her, and that was the end of that.

*

Might need a little help.
SH

John Watson:
Where are you?

*

Sherlock ran into a man’s fists. Or rather, a man ran his fists into Sherlock, again and again and again.

They limped back to Baker Street and John was wondering what on earth he thought he was doing. He shouldn’t have stepped in, he shouldn’t have fought those men off. He should have just let Sherlock be beaten to death in that alleyway. It might not have been too late, yet.

But instead he had shouted out and then run in all guns blazing. He’d taken the two thugs down as efficiently as he could and then turned to Sherlock, who was leaning against the air and concentrating the majority of his immense brain power on the task of breathing.

He tried to tell himself that he was running on automatic. His brain had seen a fight and someone being hit and he hadn’t thought that this could be the solution to everything.

But that was a lie, it was not even a very good lie because John could think of an infinite number of things in a second, if he put his mind to it, so he had known as soon as he saw what was happening. In fact he had known as soon as he got that text from Sherlock. He could have taken his time, he could have got stuck in traffic. He could have done a million and one different things and saved the world by not arriving in the nick of time.

But he did, and now he had Sherlock Holmes’ arm draped around his shoulders and he was half carrying him, half dragging him up the stairs to their flat. He could leave him alone, lay him down on the sofa and accept Sherlock’s protests that he was fine, he didn’t need medical assistance. After all, Sherlock upset the balance and there was more than a good chance that nature would find a way to sort it out if left to her own devices.

But he didn’t do that. He didn’t let Sherlock push him away, he pulled up the man’s shirt and he checked his ribs over, he sat up half the night to make sure Sherlock didn’t stop breathing (and he almost did once, just once, but it was the longest minute of John’s life).

He needed to stop this.

But he couldn’t.

*

Part 2

-

Fic: Sherlock (BBC); The Goodge Street Gambit and the Controversial Non-Holmesian Principle; G

definewisdom — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 11:05:40 GMT

This is technically a Sherlock/I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue crossover.

Yes, you read that right.

Title: The Goodge Street Gambit and the Controversial Non-Holmesian Principle
Fandom: Sherlock (BBC)
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, DI Lestrade, blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo by Sally Donovan. (No pairings)
Rating: G
Warnings: Large amounts of crack and silliness. Mornington Crescent (it comes with its own warning).
Disclaimer: Sherlock Holmes is by Arthur Conan Doyle and I take no credit for the characters involved. These versions of them belong to Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat. Mornington Crescent was not invented by me. Its beginnings are forever lost in the dark and backward abysm of time.
Author's Note: Written for rinyula who asked for John and Lestrade playing Mornington Crescent on this week's Make me a Monday on sherlockbbc - here. Betaed by the_gabih who is clearly one of the most wonderful people on the Internet ^_^ (Thank you so much).

You don't need to know about Mornington Crescent to read this fic, but it might help.

Summary: Lestrade and John play a game of Mornington Crescent, Sherlock tries to work out the rules.

It started with the murder, as most things did when you lived with Sherlock Holmes. It happened, of course, at a Tube Station, Goodge Street, and then it went on from there.

John and Lestrade were chatting while Sherlock got on with insulting everyone and poking lots of things that looked particularly unsanitary and Lestrade happened to mention the station name and John would never know what compelled him to say it (perhaps it was just that Sherlock had beaten him five times in a row at chess the night before, complaining how dull it was to have such an unworthy opponent) but whatever it was, he said it quite out of the blue.

“Looks like he’ll be a while, fancy a game of Mornington Crescent?” It was a ridiculous question. The man had probably never listened to I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, not everyone was a devoted follower of Radio 4 comedy. He probably listened to Five Live... or just switched off the radio altogether.

John blinked when Lestrade grinned at him and cast a decidedly vindictive look at Sherlock’s back.

“Marble Arch rules?” he asked.

“Only if we get to use the West Kensington corollary.”

“Naturally,” they watched as Sherlock turned to them with a rather puzzled look. “Would you like to start?”

“Goodge Street,” John said with a chuckle.

“Ah... Green Park.”

“If you’re going that way, then it’s got to be Embankment,” John said. Lestrade hissed through his teeth.

“That’s not fair.”

“You’re the one who specified Marble Arch rules,” John told him. “The game’s started, can’t go back on it now.”

“Fine,” Lestrade huffed, crossing his arms, still watching the back of Sherlock’s head. The detective hadn’t moved for the last couple of seconds. “Gold Hawk Road.”

“Nice,” John nodded in approval. “I thought you’d go for the Lyttelton gambit.”

“Considered it, but then you’d reach Westminster and we all know what that means.” There was a mutter from Sherlock that might have been ‘what?’, but he was probably talking about the body.

“Clever,” John allowed. “I think I’ll take Elephant and Castle.”

“That’s a dead end,” Lestrade pointed out, “I get three moves.”

“Dammit, I thought…” John gave an exaggerated sigh. “Of course, you were at Green Park before.” He shook his head.

“Yeah, should have been paying more attention instead of admiring my strategy.”

“You lulled me into a false sense of security,” John protested, leaning against the wall with a smile. It was utterly bizarre that they were doing this in the middle of a crime scene, but then again John’s life at the moment seemed to be a series of crime scenes occasionally punctuated by sleep.

“Tell you what; just to be kind, I won’t go the obvious way. Tottenham Court Road, Borough and then on to Bethnal Green.”

“Oh well, then I suppose I’ve got to go to Edgware Road.”

“Interesting...” Lestrade mused. “Give me a second.” A young constable came along and tapped him on the arm, whispering in his ear. “I’ll be right back.”

Sherlock stood up. He looked tense and John couldn’t quite help the smirk that was stuck to his face. He turned and John schooled his face back to complete seriousness.

“What are you playing?” Sherlock asked.

“Mornington Crescent,” John replied easily.

“It’s... complicated?” Sherlock inquired.

“Not really, not if you know the rules,” John paused and looked down at the corpse. “Anything interesting?”

“Human trafficking and possible ties to the government. Wasn’t killed here though,” Sherlock said, still frowning in confusion. “You and Lestrade both know this game. I’ve never heard of it.”

“Grew up with it,” John said quite truthfully, “Harry and I used to play it on long car journeys with our parents.”

“Your sister also plays?”

“Yeah, she always used to win,” also true, but only because Harry had never had the patience. “Would you like to join in?”

“I...” Sherlock paused. “You’re in the middle of a game, I can’t disrupt, and…”

“You must have worked out the rules by now,” John said, making sure he sounded just perplexed enough that Sherlock would believe him.

“They seem a little convoluted,” Sherlock said, pursing his lips. “I may need to observe a little longer.”

John smiled and nodded.

“Piccadilly Circus,” Lestrade announced, making John jump a little. He hadn’t seen the man coming. “Have fun getting out of that one. Sherlock, want to join in?”

“I... wouldn’t want to intrude,” Sherlock said.

“You? Learning manners?” Sergeant Donovan asked, passing by. “That’s a first.”

“Okay, I see your Piccadilly Circus and I’m invoking the West Kensington Corollary.”

“Damn,” Lestrade exclaimed, “I almost had you there.”

“Sorry, but I think you’ll find I’m at Leicester Square.”

“How...” Sherlock muttered. They both turned to him. He shut up.

“Did you want to ask something?” Lestrade asked. Sherlock just shook his head.

“No, go ahead. I need to have a look at the man’s bag.” He headed over to Sally and snatched the rucksack off her a little more violently than was strictly necessary.

“Charing Cross,” Lestrade said. There was an ‘aha’ from over where Sherlock stood and they turned to see him watching them. His words were almost too quiet to hear, but John could just make out “not the map, street view then, skipping every fourth station and crossing lines but... no... “ It took a great deal of effort not to laugh.

“Euston,” John said.

“Nice...” Lestrade murmured before smirking again. “Baker Street.”

“There’s got to be some rule against using someone’s home against them,” John said.

“Only if you’re using the Lord Fanshaw rule book and everyone knows that was discredited in nineteen fifty five.”

“True... fine. I’ll just go for Victoria then.”

“You’re trying to get points by getting a full station, aren’t you?” Lestrade said with a smirk. “You know that’s no use if I get to Kentish Town first.”

John could see Sherlock mouthing the words ‘full station’ to himself before he strode towards them. He looked a little angry.

“John, if you’ve finished your little game, we’re leaving,” he said.

“Give me a second- we’re in the last few moves,” John said.

“Bond Street,” Lestrade said obligingly. “Got anything for me, Sherlock?”

“He’s got a brother, we need to find him. Older, two inches shorter though and most likely with a beard. They’re supposed to contact each other every two hours. The next contact time is coming up...”

“I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me anything more than that?”

“That’s all I know.”

“I will do another drugs bust, Sherlock.”

“And you won’t find anything,” Sherlock said. John could see this shaping up into an argument of colossal proportions so he stepped in.

“Heh...” he laughed a little. “You know what? We’re playing Marble Arch Rules.” Lestrade groaned. “That means... Mornington Crescent.”

“Should have known better than to play with a military man,” Lestrade muttered. “Fine, but next time I’ll win.”

“You’ll try,” John said with a smile.

“Fine, good,” Sherlock said, grabbing John’s arm. “Your game’s over. Let’s go.”

“What are you looking for?” Lestrade asked.

“His left shoe,” Sherlock shot back over his shoulder. Lestrade looked down at the body.

“He’s wearing his left shoe.”

“His other left shoe,” Sherlock shouted back again.

*

The taxi was quiet. Sherlock was staring at the back of the passenger seat with the sort of intensity he usually reserved for suspects and bodies. John was biting his lips in an attempt not to giggle.

“So,” he said when he had control of his face. “Left shoe?”

“Yes, yes... The West Kensington Corollary gives the user the chance to switch places and take one move from the opponent’s perspective, yes?”

“Not quite,” John said. Sherlock gritted his teeth in frustration.

“The rules, John,” he said. “What are the rules?”

“You haven’t worked them out yet? I would have thought they’d be obvious.”

“The strategies are bizarre. The routes and moves have no basis on a linguistic or geographic reference system. Numeric coding doesn’t help...”

“No, that only comes into the Cryer equations.” John told himself that he’d put Sherlock out of his misery in a moment, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it.

“Cryer equations?” Sherlock asked. He looked completely baffled.

“Famous player,” John said with a smile. “His strategy revolved around five equations that...” he was struggling desperately to keep a straight face. “Why don’t you just look up the rules?”

“I should be able to retrospectively discover the main strategies and systems of game play from the game I just witnessed,” Sherlock told him, beating one hand against the door in frustration.

“What’s this then?” the cabbie asked from the front.

“Mornington Crescent,” John replied. There was a chuckle from the driver’s seat.

“Good game that,” he said, “used to play it with my Nan.”

The look of horror and shock on Sherlock’s face was almost enough to make the next five hours, spent looking for a left shoe that John wasn’t sure existed, worthwhile.

That and the look on Sherlock’s face when John found said left shoe hanging from a drainpipe.

_______

For those unfamiliar with this variation: Lestrade and Watson are playing by the Marble Arch Rules, which traditionally allow banking if the player before you has just spliced. Although they can be played pure, most players now only play by the Marble Arch Rules when using the West Kensington Corollary, which gives a player the opportunity to flip once in any game, thus eliminating the most common problems caused by a splice-bank-splice strategy, but then I'm sure you'd all realised that.

All common rules of shunting, lateral shifts and huffing are still in place.

Hope that clears it all up.

For all those of you who have no idea what I'm going on about and can bear being in the dark even less than Sherlock, try looking for Mornington Crescent (game) on wikipedia.

-

Fic: Sherlock/Sandman xover; omnia mutantur; R

definewisdom — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 08:20:23 GMT

Title: omnia mutantur
Fandom: Sherlock (BBC)/Sandman (Gaiman)
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, Mycroft Holmes, John Watson, Mrs Hudson, Molly Hooper, DI Lestrade, Moriarty, The Endless
Rating: R
Warnings: Desire... and Despair. I think they should both come with warnings. Weirdness?
Disclaimer: Sandman and the Endless belong to Neil Gaiman (and to themselves), Sherlock Holmes is by Arthur Conan Doyle and, though currently in the public domain, I take no credit for the characters involved. These versions of them belong to Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat.
Author's Note: This is possibly the strangest thing I've ever written. Beta'd by spotsofcolour who I shower with praise. I must make some mention of the Firefly/Sandman crossover Endless Moments by Fay-jay which gave me the idea (and if you know the fandoms, read it, or listen to the podfic. It's tremendous).

Summary: Chance (and not so chance) meetings between the Sherlock characters and the Endless.

The garden is a labyrinth: paths cross and overlap and when you turn around and go back, it is not the same way you came. There is no going back.

Mycroft is seventeen the first time he ‘visits’ the garden. He does not know what else to call the strange journey that brought him here. He had been on his way home from school, on the train. He had not thought he had fallen asleep, but he might have been mistaken. He thinks, for one fantastic second (in the literal sense of the word) that maybe he has been transported to Narnia, like the Pevensie children were. But that, his mind reminds him, was always a metaphor for heaven, and this does not seem like heaven.

He walks the pathways that twist and bend, round trees and hedges, ornamental pillars and strange water features that seem to defy the laws of physics. He is not dead, he knows that in much the same way he knows his own name. He is also not sleeping, which makes this scenario even stranger. Because to be on a train one second and in a garden the next is not something that he would have considered normal.

He does not know how much time has passed when he sees the man. It seems like no time at all and yet it seems like all the ages of the world.

Time does not pass in this garden, he thinks. It is not his thought. Here, it is always now.

The man wears a grey cowl, and he is tall, taller than any man Mycroft has ever seen. He carries a book, though it is chained to his arm. Mycroft wonders whether the book is chained to the man or the man is chained to the book. It is not a logical question, but there is something to it, some kernel of truth that escapes him.

The man turns to him and, though Mycroft can’t see his face, he understands that he is supposed to follow. So he does.

He follows the man through twists and turns, over bridges and alongside streams. It is a long walk, but eventually they get to a clearing, where the path widens and many routes intersect. The man turns around.

“We are chained to each other,” he says and then he is gone and Mycroft is alone, surrounded by ways and routes and-

He opens his eyes on the train again, pulling in to Kings Cross Station.

Mycroft returns to the garden several more times, but he never sees the man again.

Years later when he has an office and an assistant and a fleet of unmarked cars, he remembers the man and the words. He looks down at the papers that make up his work and at the pen and sees - for a second - chains around his wrists.

“To each other,” he says with a sigh, and signs a name that is not his own across the line.

*

Detective Constable Lestrade has seen death before, but never like this. There is blood on the wall and bile in his throat and he is out of the door before he has even had a chance to breath.

Outside, he sits on the wall of the garden and tries to banish the image of the girl from his mind. After a few seconds he feels a hand on his shoulder. He looks at it warily. He doesn’t need to be seen to require comfort, not his first week after the promotion.

But it is not one of his colleagues. The hand is so pale it is white and the nails are black with polish.

He follows the line of white skin up to a shoulder and then a head.

A girl with black hair and black make-up is smiling at him kindly.

Gregory has never seen her before, knows she shouldn’t be beyond the crime scene tape, but there she is, sitting there, smiling at him. Around her neck there is a heavy pendant that’s almost a cross – almost but not quite. He recognises the symbol but he couldn’t say where he has seen it before. Like the girl. He knows that he has never seen her, but she feels familiar.

“Do I know you?” he asks, feeling a niggling doubt.

“Oh, we met a long time ago, Greg,” she says, patting his shoulder. She swings herself up beside him on the wall and kicks her feet back and forward. There is something peculiar about her. She shouldn’t be here, he should be kicking her out, but he doesn’t. Her presence is comforting and when she smiles he thinks he might have just fallen in love a little bit. He shakes the feeling off.

“I don’t remember.”

“No one ever does,” she tells him, but she doesn’t seem dismayed by the fact at all. She is still smiling.

It should be horrific to him, that anyone can smile when inside there’s... he feels another wave of nausea rise up his throat.

“It won’t get any easier,” she says, “sorry about that.”

“I need to find out who did it,” he tells her suddenly, urgently. “I need to...”

“Good,” she tells him, still smiling, but not inappropriately. He has rarely felt so at peace as he does with her. It is a curious sense of belonging and comfort, almost like he felt with his mother. He feels like she could take all the cares of the world away from him if he wanted her to.

“Not just yet,” she says, resting her pale hand on his shoulder gently. “You’ve got some time left... and you’ve got Rebecca to think about.”

“Rebecca?” he asks.

“The girl inside,” she tells him. “That’s her name, Rebecca Worthington.”

“I’m not sure I can go in there,” he says, brokenly, like a confession. He wants to and he knows he should. She looks at him then, right in the eyes, and he feels like he can see for miles, for millennia.

“You really should,” she says, “for her.”

He nods, but he can’t move, rooted to the spot.

With a curious smile the girl begins to move, suddenly, impulsively towards him. She reaches up and gives him a small kiss on the forehead.

“You’ll be fine,” she tells him, whispered in his ear as she draws away.

Lestrade gets to his feet, putting away Gregory and becoming Detective Constable again. He walks to the door. When he reaches it he turns around, to say thank you, though he could never tell you what for. She is gone.

But the touch of her kiss lingers on his forehead well after an hour as passed. He feels it off and on for the next few weeks, right up until he has the arms of Rebecca Worthington’s killed yanked behind his back and he’s reading him his rights.

‘You do not have to say anything...’

*

Some are born to sweet delight...

The words make Sherlock smile to himself and almost giggle, a strange, hiccupping high pitched sound, so unlike his usual laugh it makes him want to laugh again.

He settles himself back and closes his eyes, letting the rush take him.

“Sweet delight,” he mutters again. He has always loved words, the edge of them, the shape of them, how they can explain and obfuscate. The world is slave to words and words are slaves to all. A pretty paradox.

He laughs again, though he can’t remember why. The rush is not enough, it’s never enough, but it quenches the thirst and the need for a while. He becomes lost in himself and lost to the world and his brain seems to fall into synch with everything and anything. The connections would come and the world would pass him by and he would be left alone to see what he needed to see, to find out what he needed to find out.

Solipsism.

He thinks on the word, expands it, contracts it. Solo...Solo performance, solitary, solar, solemn, solipsis.

Eternity in a grain of sand. No... the world in a grain of sand, eternity in an hour. But eternity in a grain of sand would work just as well, elide the parts and come up with a new meaning.

An hourglass, tipped up, with every falling grain an eternity of time. That is how it is. Every second takes an age and every hour a second. Time is relative, so few people realise how insignificant it is. Days and night are a happenstance of astronomical distances; hours and minutes, the leftovers of Babylonian counting systems. Such small views of the world, such small brains, limited, lost and confused and never realising.

“Hello,” a voice says, cheerful, wandering. He opens his eyes. A girl. She hadn’t been here before.

Bright hair, mismatched clothes, leaving her more than a little naked. Fishnet and leather, but she doesn’t look like the goth or bondage type, bright hair, in which the colours seem to twist and the lengths seem to grow and shrink. He closes his eyes again. She is of no consequence, all that matters is the thought - the brain - the mind. That is everything.

“Are you lost?” she asks, “You don’t look lost, but I saw a man on the street and he said he was lost, but he didn’t look lost and sometimes lost is in the mind rather than in the world and I think I might be lost. Perhaps I’m lost not you. Do you know where I am?”

“London,” Sherlock responds.

“Oh, I know that, I recognise London from the bridges and the big pointy thing by the river. I like the river, there are fish in there you know and I like fish. I have some, they change colour and sometimes they like to dance, but they’re only fish so they aren’t that good at dancing.”

Sherlock opens his eyes and she is grinning at him. There is a large blue fish swimming through the air just behind her ear.

“I came down to talk to some trees, but I think they must have moved since I last saw them because I could have sworn there was a forest here. Was there ever a forest here? I know that forests sometimes stop being forests and become motorways or buildings and I don’t know if I like that, but things always change, I suppose, that’s what my sister says. She says that things change and she’s always right about these things.”

Sherlock can’t concentrate, her words are infiltrating, sliding into him.

“Why did you put that stuff up your nose?” she asks, curious, leaning down to look at the last traces of cocaine where they lie on the table. “It doesn’t look very fun. I once had a monkey up my nose. I put it there for safe keeping and then I forgot about it and I didn’t know why all my bananas kept disappearing... or maybe I remembered and I fed it bananas up my nose. It’s hard to remember.”

She talks nonsense and idiocy. Sherlock wishes he could blot her out, just blot out the world, all of it, and be himself.

“But I think that that stuff might be the only reason you can see me and I’m glad you can see me, even if you aren’t very talkative. My brother’s not very talkative. He says that he only says what he has to say and he would know, but then my other brother’s not very talkative either. He sort of scares me but sometimes he’s very nice and I like talking to him when he’s being nice, but not when he’s being scary, he’s nicer than my sister-brother though...” She pauses, taking a long length of pink-purple-green hair and chewing it thoughtfully.

“Do you just sit there all day?” She asks. “That’s very boring. I once sat in one place for a long time, I think it might have been ten years, because I was trying to remember where the fishies had gone. It was very boring... Do you have to sit here because you put the white stuff up your nose? Have you forgotten where you put something too? I can help you look if you want. I’m good at looking for things. They’re always in the last place you saw them, or is that the moon? I know that one of them’s always in the last place you saw it... it might be the moon though, because the last place I saw that was in the sky and it’s still there now.”

“I take cocaine to stop being bored,” Sherlock tells her, though he’s not sure why. “This world is so... dull.”

“Oh, you’re just looking at the wrong parts. I haven’t seen anything dull. I saw a woman with a big bag earlier, and a man who kept looking at his watch and I saw a car hit another car and they went bang and then I saw a bird flying and I followed it for a little while, but I couldn’t keep up so I stopped to talk to a cat who wanted a mate, and the kitty let me stroke him for a bit and then I crossed a road and a man yelled at me, and then I came here to talk to the trees, but the trees weren’t here so I talked to you instead, and I haven’t been even a little bit bored.”

Sherlock thinks that that might deserve a response, but he can’t quite think of one. His brain is muddling through her words, like she can talk too fast for even him to understand. It is a terrifying feeling, being left behind.

“Sweet delirium,” he says, the words coming to him, but they are not quite right. It should rhyme with night, for Blake did love his simplistic rhymes. She pauses and smiles at him.

“If you want to be interested all you have to do is look at things, and walk around. Sometimes I look at things very closely and I find that they’re all made up of bits. Under everything people and plants and buildings and the kitty cat and even my fishies are all made up of bits. Little bits, and if you look at the bits then you can’t see the whole thing and you can’t tell if it’s a people or a plant or a building or a kitty cat until you look out again, but the bits are still important.”

“Detail,” Sherlock agrees, “is the key. No one observes anything, no one really takes the time to look.”

“You can’t see anything if you’re in here all day. You should come with me to look for the trees. I’m sure they must be around here somewhere, though they might be a piano or a pirate ship by now.”

Sherlock blinks at her.

“Ooh... a pirate ship. That sounds fun. I think I’ll go and find a pirate ship and sail around and talk to all the big fishies in the sea and the dolphins and the octokitties.”

She is gone in the blink of an eye, an afterimage on his eyeballs and Sherlock looks down at the cocaine residue and his hands as they blur a little. Are they moving? He can’t tell.

The rush of the drugs is gone now, replaced by a feeling of displacement, an unsettled feeling in his stomach.

“The strongest poison ever known/ Came from Caesar’s laurel crown...” he mutters, closing his eyes and thinking about details and trees that aren’t trees anymore and people walking on the streets outside.

Some are born to endless night.

*

William is not a kind man. She has known that since she married him. He is not unkind, in general, unless he has been drinking, or thinking, or talking with his friends about the wrong sort of things.

She had hoped, by coming to America, to Florida (where the sun always shines on the telly and everything is glossy and smooth) she would get him away from that, but it hasn’t worked.

She looks in the mirror and puts on her face.

He will be back tonight, drunk again she has no doubt, and he will call her lazy. He will sit back and expect her to make him tea and dinner and he will tell her she forgot the salt.

Not for one minute has she contemplated leaving him. Thirty years of marriage isn’t thrown away so casually as that and she does love him, underneath it all.

The bruise on her neck is almost vanished now, thanks to the new concealer he bought her.

She puts on the necklace he brought home last week and sighs again as she sees how it lies against her collar bone. It’s not her sort of thing at all, all lines and angles – a young woman’s pendant. She never asked him where he got it. She doesn’t want to know the answer.

This is how it is, she reminds herself; this is how it is and how it will be forever. She will wait for him to come home and she will make him his tea and let him dress her up in the clothes he wants.

Sometimes she imagines that she will poison him. She has even gone so far as to buy the poison. Nothing fancy, just rat poison.

They have the death penalty here in Florida, but she wouldn’t mind that much. And she knows that she could get off far more lightly if she told them about the nights she washes the blood from his clothes and showed them the bruises.

But something stops her. Perhaps it is the idea of people seeing her properly, for the first time ever, seeing what she has become. The idea drags into her heart like a fishhook, gouging out a piece of her.

There comes a knock at the door and she sighs, brushing down the front of her dress.

For a second, as she turns to go, she thinks she sees someone else in that mirror, standing behind her, short and ugly: a woman, naked as the day she was born, fat rolling off her and a curiously smug grimace on her face. There is, and she can’t be sure about this, a sharp hook in her hand and, out of the corner of her eye Mrs Hudson sees her dig it into her own breast, tearing at the skin there.

Then she blinks and the strange, terrifying sight is gone. Though there is something in her head that says she has not imagined it.

It is not her husband at the door, it is a police officer. He asks her if he can come in and then he sits her down and tells her that her husband has been arrested for murder – a teenage girl.

If he expects her to be surprised, he is sorely mistaken, but tears roll down her cheeks and she’s not sure if she’s sad or if she’s happy. Because people will know, but she is free.

Five weeks later, when it seems like he might be coming home again and she is once again in front of her mirror staring at herself and wishing she could just tear at her hair and her face and her clothes, there comes another knock on the door.

She thinks it is him at first and starts with fear. She doesn’t dare look to the mirror in case that face, that figure, is there again, haunting her mind.

It is not her husband, it is a tall man with sharp eyes and quick movements. The first words out of his mouth are ‘you knew he did it’ closely followed by ‘did he always hit you where it wouldn’t be seen?’

She is terrified for a moment. For one brief second everything hangs in mid air and she knows that it’s falling, falling, tumbling down like a house of cards. All her careful preparation is gone and she is scared that when everything she has built up is gone, there will be nothing left of her.

In the aftermath, making this strange man a cup of tea, she re-examines herself and discovers that she is not gone at all, but she is changed, like alchemy. She is hard now, under it all, not malleable and brittle like before. She sets down a mug in front of the stranger (Sherlock) and quite calmly she says:

“I should have poisoned him when I had the chance.”

“Yes,” he agrees. “It might have been simpler.”

He knows her, she can see it in his eyes; he can see her despair and her hope and her horror at herself and her husband. He can even see the most shameful thing: that even now she still loves her husband, even as she hates him. She should feel naked, but she isn’t scared anymore. This is what she is. He sees that and he has no pity or disgust at her, just knowledge.

“I want him gone,” she says, firm and steady, before taking a sip of tea – it’s so difficult to get decent tea this side of the Atlantic. After the trial she shall go home, to London and she will take in lodgers.

“I can help,” Sherlock Holmes tells her.

And he does.

She never sees that face in the mirror again, but she never forgets it either.

*

Out in the heat of Afghanistan, John has a fever dream.

He dreams that he is back home. Harry is sitting at the end of the front room, her feet up on the table and she is laughing and she is drinking.

His parents are there too, laughing. And he is the only one who doesn’t know what the joke is.

Then it changes, as things do in a dream world and his parents are not his parents and they are not people at all, but statues, caught in a moment of laughter, and Harry’s still there, but she’s also his CO and her laughter is the rattle of machine gun bullets.

He looks down and he is standing on quicksand. His feet are sinking, deeper and deeper and he knows that struggling won’t help. He knows that quite certainly in the dream world, the sort of certainty with which you know that places can be both your living room and the classroom of your primary school, that the lady with the grey hair you have never seen before is your grandmother and that something is chasing you, even though you can’t look round.

He knows it deep inside him. If he struggles he will fall faster and it will swallow him. So he stays still and he waits, because someone may still save him.

John has only ever dreamt in colour since he went to Afghanistan. Colours used to be implied, not seen, but now, in the immediacy of life, he can see the colours of the dream world clearly. The sun is blood red and everything is lit by it.

He is still sinking.

People pass him by, people he knows and people he doesn’t know yet. People he will never know. Some of them are men he has treated, their wounds still bleeding, others are people he left at home.

Harry is still laughing.

And no one helps. His feet are covered by the thick sand now, and he is stuck there waiting for help. He does not panic, he does not move, he just waits.

Then someone walks past who isn’t like the others. While everyone else is lit in the red glow of the sun, this man is not. His hair and his cloak are inky black, so black that they seem blue. And when John isn’t looking directly at him, there seem to be stars in that blackness. Pin pricks of light that disappear when you try to catch them directly.

The man stops, but he makes no move to help him.

“Who are you waiting for?” he asks, sounding curious.

John looks into his eyes and wishes he had not. While the stars that may not exist on his cloak disappear when you glance at them, the stars in his eyes do not. They burn brilliant white, almost painful and it is like looking into eternity and it is like looking into yourself.

The man does not smile, he is tall and impassive and so pale he might almost be a ghost. The red light does not touch him.

“I don’t know,” John admits, looking down at the sand still sucking him in.

“Why don’t you struggle?” the man asks again.

“It would make it worse.”

“Better to suffer the slings and arrows,” the man intones, thoughtfully. “He did see so clearly into the human condition.” John blinks, the words ring a bell, but he can’t quite place them.

“Who are you?” he asks, taking in the wild black hair and the almost regal bearing. This man is not a part of his imagination, he knows that as clearly as he knows everything else in this world. This man is separate. Although, it occurs to him, as the sand reaches his knees, that ‘what are you?’ might have been a more appropriate question.

“I am passing through,” the man tells him.

“Right...” John considers asking the man to help him out, but it doesn’t seem right somehow. There is someone coming for him, he knows, but this is not the person.

“Goodbye Doctor Watson,” the man says and John doesn’t ask how he knows his name. This is his dream after all, it makes sense that anyone passing through would know of it.

The man leaves and John waits.

He doesn’t remember his strange visitor when he wakes up, but he remembers the sinking and the hacking sound of Harry’s laughter. He will have the dream again and again, even back in London, always sinking and always waiting.

Until he meets a man who reminds him of someone he once met, or a dream he once had – tall, pale and impassive. It’s like déjà vu remembered from a dream.

*

Moriarty wants to see things burn. He wants to watch the chaos unfold and know that it was him that set things in motion. He has always liked breaking things.

The sound of breaking things is delightful, delicious. It echoes through his mind. There is nothing so satisfying as hearing glass shatter or watching things crumble and snap.

The arsonist is barely out of his teens, and he’s sloppy, but Moriarty does so like to watch him work.

He has a front row seat, too, the building across the street, so he can see all the little people flooding out of the doors and he can watch the first flames lick out of the windows and, before all of that, the first puffs of smoke appear.

He has had the fire engines blocked out as best he can, causing little street dramas here and there. He wants to sit and watch this forever. He can feel the heat, even all the way across the street.

“You,” a deep voice says behind him and Moriarty turns, slowly (no need to show his alarm just yet) to see a huge man standing behind him, arms crossed. He has a pony tail and muscles that bulge. Moriarty reminds himself that brain trumps brawn nine times out of ten.

But this man shouldn’t have been able to enter this room, and Moriarty should have heard him come in, but he didn’t. He is unimpressed by these events. This man is not welcome.

“You are a big part of the reason I quit,” the man says. “Why? Why burn the place?”

“I imagine the man who did it had a reason.”

“But you don’t,” the man replies. He doesn’t sound angry, just tired.

“I just like the view,” Moriarty tells him, looking back to the glorious devastation with a smile. The first firemen are there now.

“Enjoy it while it lasts,” the man says. Moriarty hears him stand up, but he doesn’t hear the door and, by the time he turns back, there is nothing behind him but empty air and a wall.

He shrugs and makes a note to find the man at a later date (and have the men who were supposed to be watching the door killed) and then he settles back to watch the worthless ants try to piece it all together.

The fire burns, and it is beautiful.

*

The day she finds out about Jim, Molly gets a haircut.

She does this because it’s normal, because it’s what you do when you lose a boyfriend and because she needs to do something and stabbing corpses in the chest with a scalpel is frowned upon if you aren’t Sherlock Holmes.

Well, it’s frowned upon even if you are, but Sherlock Holmes can get away with it, quiet little Molly who’s always so nice just plain can’t.

She gets her hair cut, a jagged edged bob, and she puts on her make-up and the shoes she can hardly walk in and she says goodbye to her cat.

She hates herself when she looks in the mirror. It is a deep abiding hate, but it is not despair, not yet. She has hate and anger rushing up inside her and she wants. She wants to show the world that they are wrong about her and her life. They are wrong about everything. And she wants to show Sherlock Holmes and Jim from IT who was Jim the mass murderer (and how could she not have known, she should have known, why is she so stupid?) and she wants to hurt them.

And maybe somewhere in there she wants to hurt herself, but that’s buried deep down under layers of anger.

She goes to a bar and she drinks Schnapps. She has never drunk Schnapps before which is sort of the point.

She smiles at guys and turns them away when they dare to come closer. She smiles at the bartender and she needs this.

A man grabs her by the shoulder, he calls her pretty and she lets him kiss her for just a second before pulling back and dumping her drink over his head.

She’s never done that before either.

She almost apologises, but she bites down on her tongue and smiles. It feels brittle, stretched over her like a scab. That smile is fake and the world must see it, surely they must see that she is-

“Hey there,” the voice is smooth seductive, and Molly feels it ripple through her like a wave of fire. Her throat goes dry. “You look like you’re on a mission.”

A hand drifts along her arm, a not-touch, almost there but not quite. Molly’s pulse quickens. She turns to the man.

To the woman.

To the person.

She feels like she is looking at one of those pictures – the goblet that turns into a face, the old woman or the young woman in a hat, the duck or the rabbit. The person in front of her, she can’t tell whether it’s a man or a woman. The slope of a cheek, the tilt of an eye and the curve of the mouth, they leave her reeling, like she imagines drugs must feel. But she still can’t... her eyes dart down to the person’s chest, but there is still no indication.

He or she smirks, and Molly finds deep inside her that this is what she has been looking for. This is her punishment and her prize.

“Let me buy you a drink,” the woman... man... says, voice like velvet over a knife blade. Molly nods dumbly.

The alleyway is cold but Molly’s hot, so hot. And she wants to drown in sensation because if she drowns then maybe she’ll forget that this isn’t who she is, and this isn’t what she wants.

But she does want it, the tingle following those fingers across her skin tells her that much.

She is lost in herself, lost and buried, and she wants like she never knew she could want.

Lips and teeth across her neck and she still doesn’t know this person’s name, she doesn’t know their gender.

And somehow it doesn’t matter. All that matters is the moment and the second.

Her lipstick is smeared, her new hair a mess and her feet are aching in these stupid heels, but she is still so lost to all of those sensations.

The lips pull away, curved into a cruel, cat-like smile.

“You are just delicious,” the voice says, sparking down her spine.

This is not her.

The person leans forward and brushes lips lightly across the hollow of her throat, a butterfly kiss, that almost makes Molly’s knees give way.

Then she is cold, as the man (woman, thing, creature?) pulls back and smiles again.

“Lovely,” it says, and then it walks away, laughing.

Molly clings to the wall, the only steady thing in her wall and tries to take deep breaths. Her mind is fuzzy and confused, unable to focus on anything. Her lips are burning and the hollow of her throat feels marked, though that last touch was only the lightest of caresses.

She struggles to a taxi and finds her way back home, tears in her eyes though she couldn’t say why. She collapses on the sofa and Toby curls up in her lap.

She is shaking, shivering and still hazy with want. The world has tilted on its axis for her and she thinks that she shouldn’t have gone out. She should have stayed in; she should have locked her doors.

She gets up unsteadily and bolts the door, chaining it as well, though she knows it’s already too late. The creature is in her head and she can’t get it out.

She wakes up the next morning on the sofa and she dresses in sensible shoes and jeans and a t-shirt. She puts on no make-up and she barely looks in the mirror. She packs those shoes and that dress into a bag and, when she is at work, she tosses them into the incinerator.

She looks at herself in the mirror of the ladies toilets and says ‘enough.’

She has been to the brink, but she will not fall off.

She will not fall.

*

A few more notes: The title is a reference to Sandman (which is itself a reference to Ovid) meaning everything changes. The cut text is an alternative ending to that phrase meaning 'and we change with it'.

-

Fic: Sherlock; Experiments in Living; R

definewisdom — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 09:21:12 GMT

Title: Experiments in Living
Fandom: Sherlock (BBC)
Characters: Sherlock (lots of Sherlock), Mycroft, Lestrade and a cameo by Mrs Hudson. No pairing. Mentions of John and Moriarty.
Rating: R
Warnings: Drug use also possible triggers regarding the death of a child and car accidents. No spoilers for anything past Study in Pink
Disclaimer: This version of Sherlock Holmes is the property of Moffat and Gatiss. I lay no claim to him or his companions.
Author's Note: First real thing I've posted in this fandom, not counting things I've just typed out on the spur of the moment. Beta-ed by lemniciate who is a wonderful human being and once again saived me from my addiction to ellipses. This was written before The Blind Banker so doesn't take much into account from either that or The Great Game.

Summary: Sherlock's life - in fragments.

Sherlock is five years old. He refuses to have his hair cut, because he can’t see the sense in keeping it so short when it will just need to be cut more often. His mother indulges him, mostly, but his brother rolls his eyes and calls him ‘urchin’ - the name doesn’t stick.

He is always moving, mentally and physically. He climbs right up over the porch one day and onto the roof, because he can see the route mapped out in his head like it’s begging him, calling to him to climb it.

He is right, though the way down is a little trickier and he twists an ankle, but he learns then that he always needs to plan a way out.

His parents have dinner parties sometimes, and he is dressed up in a shirt and tie. He likes the shirt; the buttons appeal, somehow. The tie, however, is too restricting for a child always turning his head, always watching everything. It disappears down the back of a sofa when no one is looking and it will never be found, but he will never forget where to find it.

Mycroft fares well at these events; he is at home with people. He alters himself to suit them and the situation, not a lot, but enough that Sherlock can see it.

But then, Sherlock sees everything. He sees how his mother’s friend is talking to another man rather than her husband, he can see the way she strokes his arm every now and then. It confuses him a bit. That is the sort of motion that his mother makes to his father. He sees how his uncle’s hands shake while he’s pouring the whisky, but when he’s draining the glass, they are steady as a rock. He files the little things away, the details. His mother says, sometimes, in a strange mood, that the devil is in the details. If that is true, then Sherlock feels a kinship with him because the details are everything.

*

When he is seven, his brother has a textbook of advanced chemistry and Sherlock reads it all in one sitting. He devours each page, fascinated by the idea that things change. One thing can become another, seemingly by magic, but really, underneath it all, there’s an explanation. The smallest thing can change something huge.

It is through chemistry he begins to understand people, begins to understand that people are just like the reactants in those books, changing when they come into contact with other people, or other things. Sometimes reactions are volatile, sometimes they are endothermic. Some people even repel one another, like identical magnetic poles. The things you have to know are the conditions: where to push, what catalysts to add, what to take away. People are just equations, really, and Sherlock learns how to manipulate both.

Mycroft is a catalyst. He moves between people and makes them react, but he never seems to be changed himself. Sherlock has a feeling that he could do that too, but then again, he prefers to be the scientist himself: putting things together, seeing how they work. He doesn’t want to get involved; just wants to see the results.

*

The first time Sherlock sees a dead body, it is a hit and run. He hears the screech of tyres, sees the girl crumple – in the uniform of the local school. He remembers knowing that she had done her hair herself that morning from the sloppy plaits and wiggling parting of her hair. Her shoes and skirt are new, but her shirt and jumper are older, faded with time. She has an older brother, she’s in his hand me downs. He remembers the car driving away, a red Ford, dent in the back bumper, so not someone for whom accidents are a strange occurrence. He can’t see a face, but the outline of a silhouette is tall, so probably a man.

But what really fascinates him is the girl, blood soaking into her hair, eyes staring out, and her face still open. She is nothing now but flesh and bones, broken on the pavement.

It is odd, he understands by now, to want to take things apart, to dissect and observe. But he has no emotions when he sees her lying there except for intense curiosity. What is it that makes her living one minute and dead the next? How did she work? What is the exact result of an impact by a car on a young girl?

The police woman tells him that he is brave. He tries to protest, but she gives him a lollipop and takes his statement. By the end of his description of the accident she looks less sympathetic and more unnerved by his clinical assessment.

He hears her talking to his parents later, “shock” she says, loud enough for him to catch and then, a few seconds later “psychiatrist”.

*

The squirrel dies of natural causes. It is not Sherlock who ends its tiny life, but he does make use of the opportunity afforded to him when he finds the small corpse outside, not yet touched by scavengers or the weather. His brother’s reaction to finding him dissecting it with a vegetable knife is loud and unpleasant.

“I wanted to see how it worked.”

“Read a book.”

“Books are other people’s opinions. You have to examine a problem in real life.”

“Books are written by experts.”

“That doesn’t mean they can’t be wrong.”

“Did you kill it?”

“No.” But Mycroft doesn’t look convince, and this is when it starts to become more difficult between them. Mycroft watches him like a hawk, monitoring his school, his teachers. The only reason he doesn’t monitor Sherlock’s friends is because Sherlock doesn’t have any. His name and his attitude make him a magnet for bullies and taunts. He doesn’t care, though, and their behaviour is just another variable, another thing to monitor.

Until his words aren’t guard enough anymore and he ends up with his own blood all over his face, and their blood all over his hands. Violence is not a problem; it is merely another example of applying power in the right places. Knowing how things work is more of a weapon than muscles and height. Two dislocated shoulders, one broken nose and a broken knee are the results of his knowledge. All they manage to achieve in return are a bloody lip and a dark purple eye.

The teachers are disapproving, but none of them has ever known how to deal with him. They have never been able to face his effortless knowledge of the things he is interested in and his utter indifference to matters he does not care about. His reports at the end of the year teeter between the sublime and the disastrous. ‘A’s and ‘F’s and nothing in between. What care has he of politics when that is such a wide, vague, illogical subject? All he needs to know about a man is written in his gait, his face and his clothes, his political allegiance is irrelevant.

In Chemistry, though, he shines. Here Sherlock learns that he too, can move like Mycroft, pushing the teacher’s buttons, endearing himself to her in order to get what he wants.

*

He hits his growth spurt late, at fifteen and two months he still hovers around the five foot mark, by fifteen and five months he is five eight and less than a year later he completely clears six foot. His voice deepens and suddenly the world changes again.

People look differently at a man just over six feet compared to how they look at a five foot boy. It’s not just that they often have to look up. Even without the bulkier muscles that some of the other students have, he looks imposing enough (a look that was not hindered by his unnerving stare and unknowing sense of presence) to avoid the worst of the bullies. He is left alone, and so he leaves the world alone, grateful for his new guard against imposition.

But his change in stature has some unexpected problems as well. While he can convince most of the world to ignore him, suddenly the PE teachers are fascinated. They ask him to run and jump and kick a ball about. It baffles his mind, for there is no point to any of it, and nothing to keep the games interesting. The rules of football are too simple, too menial, and what is the point of running with no real destination but a finish line? The challenge, he is told, but there is no challenge in something like that, animals and idiots can run and kick and jump.

But to make it an intellectual puzzle: to find his way through mazes and signs, to avoid the crowds or the heavy traffic. That is a challenge, and so he teaches himself to run in a different arena, finding shortcuts and different routes. The quickest route is not always the shortest route, he learns fairly early on, so he examines the problem until it is barely a challenge any more. He learns the city until it is a part of him, all plotted out in his head. It is a giant puzzle, a jigsaw that no one ever puts together properly. They think they know this place, but really, they are blundering around in the dark.

Taxis, he appreciates. ‘The Knowledge’ is something he respects. Taxi drivers know almost as much about the city and its ways as he does himself – not to mention that when you take a taxi you don’t have to be surrounded and inundated by the rest of London’s population.

*

When school becomes University, Sherlock is struck by how utterly limited the world is. He has imagined, thought, hoped, that outside that tiny little prison, with its tiny little minds, there would be something amazing, something incredible, just waiting for him. But he has forgotten the primary rules of life, nothing just comes, nothing waits for you. All reactions, whether minuscule or massive, have reactants or catalysts, and even those that happen in the natural world need something to bring them about.

So Sherlock decides that he will bring it about. He will not sit back and wait for life to react with him; he will make it react.

Lectures bore him, tedious hours of insignificant information with a few, bright points of insight that he wants to applaud – so he leaves. He reads the library, as much as he is interested in. He breaks into the labs and explores the things that they don’t teach in their stuffy classes and laboratory sessions. His fascination with death and the human body’s frailty returns in full force, and he plays with poisons and acids, learning how they react with the world. Sometimes he experiments on himself, sometimes on animals.

There is one day when every rat in the University labs is found unconscious in the morning, and Sherlock walks the campus with his pupils blown, his head fuzzy from the unexpected gas he had synthesised the night before. The locks are changed, new, electronic key pads installed and it takes him less than half a second to work out that the combination is the birthday of the professor’s wife. Tediously boring and predictable, and yet the man is published. These paradoxes confuse Sherlock.

He skips from house to house, asked to leave again and again when the dead animals in the freezer and the strange explosions and violin playing become too much for the ‘normal’ people. At least here, in the world of students, his sleep patterns don’t raise eyebrows, but that is one of the only bonuses. He returns to his college in the end, safer and more comfortable there, in spite of the dislike that is almost palpable from the other students.

Mycroft keeps an eye on him. He’s working in the government, something top secret, but Sherlock always knows, from the dust on his shoes, the ink on his fingers. Mycroft responds by reading Sherlock’s experiments off his cuffs and his trouser legs. They are at an impasse.

Sherlock imagines being forever under Mycroft’s eye, under his thumb, trapped in some office and following orders of people without the intellect to see the world around them properly, and he knows that he cannot follow that path.

*

University wanes. He has taken all he can from this place, none of it in the lecture theatres, so he leaves. Gets up one day and walks out. He takes a huge bag, only half of it filled with clothes, the rest is notes and random items he has collected over the years. None of it is useful, but it is all interesting and that is what matters, really.

Sherlock decided, years ago, that there is no true purpose to life. He fails to see the point of the daily rat race. After all, if the only purpose of going to work is to earn money so that you can survive to continue going to work every day, then there is no point to any of it. All that there is in life is staying entertained. If nothing has a point then you might as well enjoy yourself.

He gets on a plane and goes away, reading the passengers with an ease borne of long practice. The large man in the shirt has a nervous tic in his right hand; he’s looking around nervously. The destination of the plane (a known tax haven) tells Sherlock all he needs to know about him. The young couple engaging in more than a necessary amount of touching has matching shiny wedding rings. No prizes for guessing what they’re doing. Though he is cheating on her, Sherlock gets from the way the man follows the hostess’s legs down the aisle. If he hasn’t managed it yet, he’ll be an adulterer before the honeymoon is over. He’ll be found out, too; he’s not smart enough to keep it a secret. Sherlock sets a limit of three weeks on their happy marriage.

A young girl is on a plane for the first time, with her mother and step father. There are marital difficulties, mainly caused by the woman still being in love with her first husband.

Sitting next to him is a professional man, possibly a scholar if the clothes and reading material are anything to go by. He doesn’t attempt conversation, for which Sherlock is endlessly grateful, just keeps his face in his book.

There is not enough to do on a plane to entertain him for long, and hours later, Sherlock can feel himself itching under his skin. The boredom is returning, burying his mind in never-ending loops of nothing. He wants to get up, he wants to scream or claw his hands into something. He can feel his mouth pursing, his fingers clenching into the arm rests. There is nothing to do, nothing to look at. The inside of a plane holds no interest at all.

They cannot get down to earth fast enough for him. He grabs his bag and leaves, heading through passport control with no difficulty. He has no place to stay, no friends, but this place is new, it is fresh. It doesn’t follow the same rules as London.

He explores, finds his way to a guest house and endears himself to the lady in charge with a smile and some of the charm he is teaching himself. Admittedly, some if it is probably because he recognised her as expatriate immediately, identifying her place of birth to within almost ten miles. He’s a little disappointed at that, actually. If he had noticed the postcards of Manchester on the hall mirror more quickly, he could have pinpointed it to the exact hospital. It also helps that he resembles her eldest son a little, though, she insists, his manners are better. She gives him tea and asks him about England. It is one of the strange facts of life that people will feel nostalgia for a place they couldn’t wait to get away from. Sherlock doesn’t understand it; he does not miss England at all.

He is not even a little surprised when Mycroft calls that evening, though Sherlock had not told him where he was staying.

“What took you so long?” he asks, without waiting for his brother to greet him.

“I had work, and news of your little... escapade didn’t get through to me until half past.”

“The burdens of having to rely on other people,” Sherlock comments. There is a moment of silence, and he can imagine Mycroft taking a deep breath, preparing his ’Sherlock’ face. He is sitting at his desk, the files are open in front of him, the computer probably has information on the guest house and its owner, a print off of Sherlock’s ticket purchase is no doubt in his hand.

“You haven’t completed your degree.”

“I completed everything I needed to.”

“But not enough to get an actual qualification.”

“What do I need a qualification for? I know how intelligent I am.”

“Yes... yes you do.”

Mycroft tells him not to do anything stupid. Sherlock points out that ‘stupid’ doesn’t really apply to him and Mycroft sighs again. Sherlock is tired of sighing and hangs up without waiting for a reply. If Mycroft really wants to talk to him, no doubt some men in suits will usher Sherlock into a car with tinted windows at some point. He has no illusions about the length of his brother’s reach, and it’s growing longer every year.

Sooner or later, Sherlock is going to be the brother of the man who rules the world. He hopes that doesn’t cause too much of a problem for him.

It shouldn’t though. Mycroft is, after all, concerned with life on a macro scale, the rise and fall of civilisation, where Sherlock turns his attention to the minutiae. But it is inconvenient to be watched so steadily. He’ll just have to try harder... which means more of a challenge.

Sherlock’s mouth creeps into a smile as he realises that maybe that is exactly what he needs: an opponent. Mycroft will do, for now.

He travels for a while, earning money with odd jobs, leaving them as soon as he tires of them. Sometimes he earns rewards for piecing together small mysteries or calling in tips, especially in America, where that appears to be all the rage.

Eventually, he drifts back to London, his mind twitching with lack of activity. There is nothing left to do. Sherlock laments the idea that he has reached his mid twenties and run out of world, run out of challenges. Mycroft eyes him warily, and Sherlock has the strangest idea that the government will now judge him as some sort of major threat.

To be honest, he doesn’t doubt it. The boredom is settling into a dreary ennui, pulling him down, and he needs something new, something interesting. He has seen the world and explored all ideas of deduction and detection, piecing together his own, peculiar science out of it, more precise than biology or psychology. But there is no fun to it with no game, no challenge with no opponent.

He needs stimulation.

He needs something new.

It is curiosity that leads him to his first syringe of heroin. Fascination as he watches the needle pierce the skin, scientific interest that detachedly examines his responses to it.

The effect is amazing. It opens his mind, shows him places he had never thought to look before. It opens him up and clears the world into its parts. Everything makes more sense, the boredom lifts, like a curtain and he is alive again. He can feel the energy and the brilliance of it all.

The sudden clarity and the respite from the mind-numbing banality of life are too precious to give up. The world without the drugs becomes even worse and he knows he is addicted, but at the same time, he believes this is just another experiment, another game.

Mycroft finds him, high as a kite, in the rooms where he is living and confiscates his stash. Sherlock is barely aware of his presence until after he comes down again. There is nothing left and he is lost without it, shut in walls of grey and black. There is no colour, no interest in a world without his newest passion, so he sets out to find it again.

It doesn’t destroy his life, much to Mycroft’s disappointment, he still functions as well as he ever has. It helps to brush away the cobwebs.

Then he gets arrested for possession. It is only his quick thinking that helps him get off. Detective Sergeant Lestrade is not looking and somehow the evidence is lost. Sherlock learnt to pick pockets in Brazil, where some of the best petty thieves in the world live. He could steal a wedding ring from a finger and a watch from a wrist without making someone blink; an evidence bag is nothing.

He is sitting in the holding cell when he begins to notice the people around him. It is that, more than his quick fingers, which gets him out of that cell. Detective Sergeant Lestrade is unimpressed until Sherlock solves three of his cases in five minutes.

They let him go from lack of evidence, and he almost forgets the earnest face of the Sergeant, until he wakes from another of his drug stupors not to Mycroft’s face, but Lestrade’s.

“Why do you do this to yourself?” Lestrade asks.

“Something to do,” Sherlock replies, strangely honest in this moment. “There is so little of interest. The heroin provides a different view of the world. It makes things seem... clearer.”

“You do heroin because you’re bored?”

“There are worse reasons,” Sherlock replies. Lestrade’s face looks unconvinced. Inspector Lestrade now, he remembers reading in the papers. He had earned the man a promotion. Perhaps there is some convention of social interaction behind that. Maybe the gratitude is why Lestrade is not hauling him down to the police station again.

“I...” Sherlock reaches for another syringe and his rubber tubing, but Lestrade snatches them out of his hands. “Leave it!”

“Why?”

“Because I have something better than the bloody junk!” Sherlock’s eyes widen, his fingers are still itching for the syringe, but his interest is piqued.

“Tell me.”

“None of that,” Lestrade nods to Sherlock’s personal drugs kit, spread over the table, “until this is over.”

“Inspector,” Sherlock replies, placing just enough emphasis on the title that Lestrade knows that Sherlock knows just how he earned it. “You can hardly expect me to just...”

“None of that, or I leave you with your boredom.”

Sherlock sits up, his limbs are lethargic, but he manages to lever his long frame up. He has noticed that Lestrade looks unkempt, exhausted and frustrated. He is having problems with a case. There is a file in his hand. He is here to ask about a case. The Detective’s phone rings and Lestrade flinches slightly, but doesn’t pick it up. That means he’s here against his better judgement, he hasn’t told anyone. It’s an important case.

Sherlock’s mind is whirring again, the interest is back.

“I agree. Who’s dead?”

Lestrade startles easily. He flinches when Sherlock asks, his mouth falling open. “How did you...”

“Don’t ask boring questions.”

Ten minutes later and the heroin is all but forgotten, apart from a twinge in the bottom of Sherlock’s stomach, as Lestrade is taking him through the facts of a locked room mystery. There is a game, there is an opponent. For the first time in years, Sherlock can see reason to the madness of this mundane world.

It is over too quickly, and the lure of his heroin is too much again. He crumbles back into it, until Lestrade’s next visit and the next case.

“No more,” Lestrade says eventually. “I’m not doing this with you again until you’re clean. Completely clean, Sherlock.”

There is a moment of doubt, the first that Sherlock has ever really had, when he stands over the toilet with his collection of narcotics and debates whether he prefers the high of the heroin or the high of the chase.

He chooses the chase, but he looks back. That first year he looks back a lot. But staying above the addiction is a new challenge. He refuses to let himself fall. Instead, he decides to see the world again, get away from London.

*

He meets Mrs Hudson in Florida at a court house. He enjoys going in and listening to the cases. So far he has seen three innocent men convicted and one guilty man go free. He despairs at the juries, made up of people of such limited scope, and the lawyers who can’t piece things together well enough to prove them. When he walks into the trial of Mr Hudson, he is disgusted that any person in these court rooms considers himself intelligent.

The prosecutor in Mr Hudson’s case is ridiculously incompetent, although the man’s guilt is written all over his face. Sherlock mutters something to that effect in Mrs Hudson’s hearing and she turns to him with all the force of an avalanche.

“What do you know?”

“I know he’s guilty, and I know how he did it,” Sherlock admits, sighing. Her eyes widen.

“Prove it,” she says. So he does.

Mr Hudson goes to the lethal injection while Sherlock is finding his way without the heroin. The symmetry is not lost on him.

Mrs Hudson returns to London, leaving him with instructions to look her up if he ever goes back himself, and Sherlock goes on.

He relapses once, in Chicago, when he can’t find a way to make his mind kick start into action. When he wakes up he is disgusted at his failure and disposes of the drugs again. Normal people backslide, ordinary people get addicted to things and lack the control to stop. He refuses to be like them.

Sherlock heads back to London, knowing what he is going to do. He is going to become a detective, but not just a detective. The commonplace is not for him, and to group himself with the amateurs who run around in circles would be insulting to his powers of intellect. So he becomes a consulting detective and, as soon as he is back in England, calls Lestrade to offer his services.

He is told, in no short words, to get lost. But three weeks later (during which he has set up a website and had actual clients. He even has an office – it’s his living room, but that’s not the point) Lestrade comes through his door, looking determined and his eyes sweeping around for any evidence of drug use.

“I’m clean,” Sherlock says firmly.

“How long?”

Sherlock considers lying, considers saying three years, but no. He is a devotee of the truth, after all.

“I had a small hiccup three months ago, but two years.”

Lestrade looks him up and down as Sherlock steeples his hands and smirks. This, he knows, is going to be fun.

Consulting detective work does not pay as well as he had hoped. He makes it a couple of years, using Bart’s’ facilities to help his research, but eventually the financial issues become too important to disregard. Apparently too few people appreciate his genius, so he ends up having to sell his flat and move into something a little less... expensive. It is then that he remembers Mrs Hudson.

She has a few free rooms, left over from when her children left home, and she is more than happy to let him have one. The rent is still high, but manageable – if he gets a flat mate.

Therein lies the problem. Who would want Sherlock Holmes for a flatmate?

*

Sherlock has become used to thinking of life almost as chess, with people just pieces for him to move around. He has no opponent, not really, but he gets by.

John Watson shakes that up.

At first he just recognises a kindred spirit. He knows, as soon as he looks at the man, that here is someone else whom boredom plagues with its echoing, aching hollowness. There is something in that. They could ‘get along’. Sherlock doesn’t consider friendship. Friends are things that happen to other people. He has a network of acquaintances, some useful, some interesting, some rare few a combination of the two. He has Mycroft, but that is not friendship, nowhere near.

At first it is merely fun to see how the doctor reacts to his prodding and his poking. The first sign he gets that John is different is when the man compliments him in the taxi. There is honest praise in John’s tone. Sherlock doesn’t know when he ever got that before – not for just being himself.

It’s not until after the shot, though. Not until after that amazing shot, that Sherlock realises that he has underestimated this man. John is not just another reactant, he’s not a catalyst, but he changes the rules of the game with an ease that Sherlock is not used to.

Sherlock is so used to playing on his own that he’s not sure what this is, this partnership. John is not his pawn or his knight, John is another player in his own right. That’s an exciting thought.

And Moriarty...

So many years of nothing, hollow attempts to fill the world with excitement and in one night he has found a partner and an opponent. Things are looking up. The Game has changed, or maybe it has only just begun, but he is definitely looking forward to it.

Boredom suddenly seems very far away.

-

Fic; Sherlock; For Posterity; PG-13

definewisdom — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 11:16:29 GMT

Title: For Posterity
Fandom: Sherlock (BBC)
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Gen - John Watson & Sherlock Holmes
Disclaimer: While Sherlock Holmes is Public Domain, the BBC interpretation of these characters is Moffat and Gatiss's brain child.
Author's Note: Based on the BBC blogs linked to the series... I got bored again and wrote scrappy fic. There is no plot, it is just a scene that came into my head.

“Your literary ability is abysmal,” Sherlock greets him on Tuesday morning, before he’s even had his toast yet.

John doesn’t bother responding.

“Did they not teach you the importance of varying your vocabulary in whatever school you went to? I know the education system in this country is shambolic at best, but if they didn’t mention the tedium that repetition of the ‘and then’ structure gives, then I may need to find your teachers and ruin their careers for the good of the world.”

“Good morning, Sherlock,” John tells him, pouring hot, strong coffee into a mug (his own mug that Sherlock is not allowed to touch because he very much likes knowing what’s been in it).

“Your account of the facts is accurate enough, of course, though it lacks the most interesting details. As my chronicler you should pay more attention to my methods and less to narrating the standard, mundane events of everyday life.”

“I hardly count being tied to a chair as a standard event,” John mutters. Sherlock hears him, of course he does. There’s nothing Sherlock doesn’t hear, or see. John wouldn’t be surprised if the detective turned round to him one day and said that because he had heard the flap of a butterfly’s wings on the other side of the Atlantic, there was going to be a freak Tornado in Knightsbridge.

“That would depend on your sexual habits,” Sherlock says, in just as nonchalant and unimpressed a tone as he analyses everything else. John has to clamp his lips together not to spit out the mouthful of coffee he has just taken.

“Yes, I suppose it would.” He’s getting better at not reacting. Sherlock seems to say these things casually, but John has realised that at least half of them are said with every intention of getting a reaction. It’s like he’s being put through a series of tests.

“As I was saying,” Sherlock continues, “these accounts will hardly be useful to posterity if you do not examine my method, John.”

“I’m not writing for posterity,” John tells him, picking up the paper and collapsing back into the chair he has come to know as his. At first, upon seeing Sherlock’s clutter, he had felt claustrophobic, irritable. Mess was not something he was used to any longer and the mess of living with a genius was different from any other mess he had encountered. It wasn’t that Sherlock didn’t know how to tidy, he just didn’t see the point in something so tedius when there were so many other things he could be doing, or one thing took his mind off in a tangent, leaving the evidence of his prior activity still lying about.

“Of course you are.”

“No... I’m writing a personal blog,” John said, speaking slowly, calmly. Breathe in, breathe out. The therapy had at least been good for teaching him to squash the anger that built up from time to time. “It is intended as a therapeutic exercise and a way of keeping in touch with the world and my friends and family.”

“Nonsense,” Sherlock muttered. “Now you’re just quoting your therapist. They’re accounts of my cases, sometimes punctuated with tedious asides into your own life.”

“Do you mean to be insulting or is it just a natural talent?” John asked, unable to squash that last thread of irritation down quite firmly enough. Sherlock just smiled at him.

“Good, you’re so dull when you’re controlling yourself.”

“I’m also not punching you in the face,” John told him, managing to keep a jovial tone, smiling slightly. Sherlock gave a surprised laugh.

“You wouldn’t be able to anyway,” Sherlock replied. “Pass me that jar, would you?”

“What’s in it?” John asked, dutifully passing the jar, which was full of some viscous, almost colourless liquid.

“Embalming fluid...”

“I don’t want to know, do I?”

Sherlock considered the question with a slight frown.

“Probably not.”

“Then I’ll go and have a shower. Try not to mummify anything while I’m gone.”

“I can’t make any promises.”

“I know. Just try not to mummify yourself, alright. Think of what a loss that would be for posterity.”

Fic: Sherlock, untitled character blah

definewisdom — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 08:58:42 GMT

Fandom: Sherlock (BBC)
Rating: PG
Pairing: John Watson & Sherlock Holmes
Disclaimer: Everything here belongs to a strange combination of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Stephen Moffat, Mark Gatiss and the BBC. And a little tiny bit of me. Which answers the question of what would happen in the statistically unlikely event that those people (things? entities?) had a baby.
Author's Note: Because when I get into a fandom I feel the need to explore characters (because there's nothing I hate more than poor characterisation. Feel free to laugh at the irony) so I did. Plus I already exhausted all the fic on the internet for this fandom. Which meant I had to jump in.

Sherlock reminds John of the soldiers. Only, that’s not right.

He reminds John of the soldiers and, at the same time he doesn’t. Because the way he looks and the too-fast way he moves, with the eagerness of adventure, reminds him of the young boys who’d just signed up for a laugh or for adventure. The ones who had come without really understanding what war was, despite the training.

But then, he’s not that person. He’s not anything like that. Sherlock’s not naive or innocent or even vaguely twitchy in that way that young soldiers get, nerves and excitement and horror coalescing into a movement somewhere deep down inside them, underneath the skin. He’s blasé about death, about everything. He’s got the devil-may-care, arrogant, do and die attitude of the career soldier. The big ones who don’t talk as much, but will pick up a gun from a mangled corpse because they’ve run out of ammo and won’t even blink about it. It’s all about the job.

But that’s not right either. He’s got the arrogance of some of the worse officers, the ones who are convinced they are right and damn the consequences. He’s in charge of any situation because he says he is.

And then, he’s not like a soldier at all, really. It occurs to John sometimes. All those traits, rolled into one, make a little boy. A child who was spoilt a bit and who always answers back. Children can never sit properly still and children see everything as a game. A child will not notice death because they don’t understand it; a child will believe the universe revolves around them.

But, and there’s one crucial difference here, a child will be wrong and Sherlock Holmes, Watson is beginning to fear (beginning to understand?) is right.

-

unbeta'd because, well, the fandom is so gorram young that there isn't any sort of system in place - and also because I sort of wrote this at work... maybe a little.

-

Fanart: Sisters of the Agiel

definewisdom — Tue, 18 May 2010 18:53:06 GMT

Title: Sisters of the Agiel
Fandoms: Merlin & Legend of the Seeker
Rating: PG
Pairing/Characters: Morgana, Gwen
Disclaimer: Really don't own Merlin or Legend of the Seeker. One belongs to the BBC et al, the other... well, I'm not sure who owns it but it's not me.
Warnings: Leather? Crossover? Cleavage?
AN: Drawn for kinkme_merlin prompt: Crossover, Gwen/Morgana, fusion of sorts with Legend of The Seeker - Gwen as Mord Sith (they did take the nicest of the girls to train) and Morgana as a Mother Confessor (art prompt). It sort of took hold of my brain.

-

Fic: Supernatural; On a Tuesday; PG-13,

definewisdom — Sun, 16 May 2010 11:59:10 GMT

Title: On a Tuesday
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/Characters: Chuck, God
Word count: 810
Disclaimer: I really don't own Supernatural, at all. Not even a little bit.
Warnings: This fic is never going to get betaed, it's never going to see the light of day anywhere other than here. It is made up of grammatically incorrect, long, rambling sentences and bizarre asides. Oh yeah SPOILERS FOR SUPERNATURAL 5x22
AN: A few things in the S5 finale have raised eyebrows, one of those things being the whole... Chuck thing. This is an attempt to get rid of a few plot holes, maybe. It is self indulgent and weird.

God arrived on Tuesday, which sort of upset Chuck’s mind because in his perfect literary world of symmetry God should have arrived on Thursday, or maybe Sunday if you were going for the really religious aspect. But no, God decided on Tuesday, which really, if you think about it, is a bit of a nothing day, neither here nor there. It didn’t have the horror of Monday, nor the anticipation of Friday, and it was nowhere near as fun as Saturday.

He also knocked on the door, which Chuck found odd because, in his experience, heavenly entities tended just to barge right on in, but God seemed to have a few more manners. Just a pity he hadn’t passed them on to his kids.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. Not by a long shot. God not only turned up on the wrong day and didn’t have the good sense to make a decent entrance, he turned up looking like Chuck. God, Chuck felt, should be imposing, tall, wise, old, young, male, female. God… shouldn’t actually appear corporeally at all. God should be… like a fade to black moment, a figment of your imagination in a dream or something. He definitely shouldn’t wear your face.

Although he did now have an inkling of just how weird it must have been for Dean to see that shape-shifter, which was good. Understanding your characters’ experiences helped you when you were a writer.

“Holy fuck!” Chuck said, which wasn’t the best thing to say when faced with an omnipotent deity, but when he came to think of it afterwards, even if he had only thought if God would still have known. Omniscience is a bitch… really.

“Sorry to drop in like this, but you know how it is when you get to the end,” God said, like he came round every now and then for tea and biscuits. (does God like tea? Would he have created it if He/She/Chuck/It didn’t? What are God’s favourite biscuits? Would he like that packet of half stale Oreos that Becky found at the back of the cupboard when she tried to ‘tidy’ (read poke around and be nosy)?)

“No, thank you,” God said, “although I wouldn’t say no to a glass of something stronger.”

As Chuck poured out a measure of whisky for God and sat down, a little confused and a lot scared, on his sofa – pouring himself out a generous triple – his brain kicked into gear long enough to actually move.

“The end?” he asked, although he had sort of known it was coming, he had maybe, possibly, hoped that it would he another few months away. He kind of wanted to see how Lost finished, he’d been watching it for a while, after all.

“Mmhm. I considered just letting you write it, but I do want it to be exactly right you know, and I’ve always wanted to try writing something myself. No one ever lets me. Isaiah and I had quite the argument about it… and don’t even get me started on John. Revelation was supposed to end with the words ‘to be continued’ you know.”

“Right.” Surreal doesn’t quite cover it, Chuck felt, pouring out another glass.

“So I was thinking maybe you’d let me write this last one.” Chuck didn’t think that ‘let’ was the most appropriate word, but he smiled as vaguely as he could. “Don’t worry, it’ll just be for about a week and then you can have everything back. You can just go on holiday in the mean time. Ever been to Jamaica? Spain?”

Chuck thought that maybe God had offered to be a supply prophet for the next week, but then again he wasn’t entirely sure he was sane so trusting his ears might be a little wrong.

“Barbados?” he suggested, thinking of sunny beaches and hot girls in bikinis.

“Good choice,” God said with approval. “Relax, enjoy yourself. I’ll keep your keyboard warm.”

The next thing Chuck knew, he was sitting on a chair at a bar in Barbados, looking out at a bright blue sea. The whisky in his hand was suddenly a lot larger and brilliant pink. He took a sip – apparently God knew he liked a Seabreeze.

It was almost two hours later when he realised that he was expecting a call from Mistress Magda. The idea of God picking up that phone. It felt a little like his Mom had found his porn stash, though. A few minutes of utter terror later he told himself to grow up: after all, God had invented the birds and bees.

He raised his glass (a Sex on the Beach this time) in a salute of thanks for that and settled back into his chair, just hoping that God didn’t screw up the damn ending – it would be Chuck who had to deal with the mad fangirls, after all.

-

Fic: Gundam Wing; It's Important to Accessorise; PG-13

definewisdom — Sat, 01 May 2010 13:06:44 GMT

Title: It's Important to Accessorise
Fandom: Gundam Wing
Rating: PG-13 (because Duo has a dirty mind)
Pairing/Characters: 2+4 friendship, Rashid. Gen
Word count: ~1000
Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing, or Batman, or The Incredibles or anything associated with any of those things. I'm also not getting any profit from this
Warnings: unbeta-d, AU - ridiculously so.
AN: Written for gw500 prompt 298 - belt. I wanted to write something introspective and characterful, probably about Duo, but then Quatre wanted to be Bruce Wayne. No... really, he did. This was written in about an hour so it's a little sloppy.

“What is it?” Duo asked, although he already knew. The object in question was not in any way ambiguous.

“It’s a belt.”

“No, Quat, it’s not,” he said firmly. “A belt is just a strip of material which can be fastened. This is a… utility belt.” At least the billionaire had the grace to look a little guilty.

“Well yes, but we discussed this.”

“We discussed the fact that you were bored of spending your trust fund on things that didn’t make a difference in the long run.”

“I’m sick of siphoning money into charities that steal and cheat, but there’s no way to get the money to the people who need it, so I decided I would… put the money to good use.” Quatre’s blue eyes were narrowing in the way that meant he was preparing for battle – verbal or otherwise.

“By buying toys?”

“It’s not a toy,” Quatre insisted, beginning to pull some rather interesting things from the pockets and sheathes of the utility belt. “It’s a highly advanced and perfectly engineered piece of equipment. Not to mention that it’s an essential accessory”

“Accessory to what?” Duo asked, resisting the urge to drop his head into his hands. He had always known, ever since Quatre had practically adopted him, that the Winner heir, as the papers insisted on calling him, had wanted to save the world but when they had had that conversation about Batman Duo had never expected the idiot to do anything about it.

“I was hoping you would ask that,” Quatre beamed, his face lighting up with excitement. “Rashid,” he looked over Duo’s face and, sure enough, there his bodyguard slash butler stood, his face carefully neutral. Duo almost had a heart attack, he considered himself a master of stealth but somehow Rashid always got the drop on him. For such a huge man he was damn brilliant at sneaking around, but you never caught him at it. He just appeared and disappeared there were no awkward meetings where you found the guy on tip toes or sneaking out of a door.

“Yes, Master Quatre.”

“Could you fetch the suit, please?” Quatre asked, almost innocently, and Duo could feel his eyes bugging out of his head.

“Suit. Suit?” he asked, gaping like a land-bound fish at his friend. “Tell me you have not got a cape to go with that belt.

“Of course not,” Quatre said, shaking his head. “I’m not an idiot. I watched The Incredibles with you, remember. Capes get you dead.”

“But you do have some stupid spandex outfit with the underwear on the outside,” Duo said, groaning. He was going to need a drink in a moment, but he knew for a fact that the only alcohol Quatre would have on the premises was a decanter of single malt.

“I would never wear something so Superman,” Quatre’s smile had turned positively wicked. “I’m hardly Clark Kent.” No, Duo thought, just Bruce Wayne.

“So, what does that thing do, anyway?” Duo asked, indicating the belt. Quatre excitedly began to demonstrate.

“Well, there are lock picks, of course,” he said, sliding them out of a concealed pocket. “Thanks for teaching me to use them,” Duo waved off the gratitude. He was already regretting it after all. It had just been meant as a way to pass the time. “Wire cutters, There are some GPS trackers, fitted with electromagnets, throwing stars, wire, ultra-violet ink, in case I need to mark something invisibly, an alarm button that alerts Rashid if I’m in serious trouble, a knife, a paralytic,” a small vial was produced from one of the pockets, “a sedative and sodium pentothal.”

“Sodium pentothal,” Duo repeated, staring down at the small pile of items on the antique coffee table. The throwing stars in particular were calling to him, and that piece of wire. He could remember that conversation, it had been a few years ago when Quatre had realised that he carried things around in his hair and the three foot braid was not just a fashion choice. ‘Why wire?’ the blond had asked and Duo had just shrugged, ‘it comes in useful’ he had said, neglecting to mention that one of the more common uses was as a garrotte. He swallowed a little, wondering if Quatre had considered that when he had added the wire to his little ensemble.

“And…” Quatre opened another pocket, but shut it again.

“And what?” Duo asked, teasing a bit. “Is that where you keep your lube or something?”

“Duo!” Quatre glared at him.

“Condoms? Lipstick?” he asked, fingers darting forward to snag the belt from Quatre’s grasp. “Come on, you’ve already shown me your utility belt, what could be so embarrassing.”

“It’s my utility belt,” Quatre snapped, pulling it back and Duo let it go, still smirking.

“Fine, but if it isn’t lube then I’m going to be highly disappointed in you,” he said, making a face. “What’s the use of being a billionaire playboy crime fighter if you don’t get the guys?”

“It’s not about getting the guys… and I’m not a billionaire, my father is.”

“And what does he think of you spending your money on utility belts and sodium pentothal?”

“Like he’d notice if I danced naked on the moon.”

“Quat, the moon’s a little far away for anyone to notice.”

“You know what I mean. I get my trust fund and my house and in return I don’t embarrass him in the tabloids. That’s our little arrangement. As long as I don’t do anything to jeopardise that, then he won’t even notice.”

“And dressing up in a stupid costume and indulging your Bruce Wayne complex won’t get you into the tabloids.”

“Maybe me, but not the name Winner.”

“Ah.”

“Anyway,” Quatre said calmly, “it’s not a stupid costume.”

“What is it then?” Duo asked. He started as Rashid suddenly appeared at his side again. If he didn’t know that Quatre would have told him immediately, Duo would have thought that the Winner Enterprises labs had come up with a working teleportation device. He turned to look at the huge man and gaped at what the butler was holding.

“Your body armour, Master Quatre,” Rashid said.

Quatre couldn’t help but laugh at the expression on Duo’s face.

-

Apocabigbang: Fic: Postremus Regum Britanniae; Merlin; R; Epilogue

definewisdom — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 16:16:50 GMT

Chapter 11 - We Ride to War

Epilogue - Postremus Regum Britanniae

The world ended last week. Eight days ago. It shifted and crumbled before our eyes and it changed into something unrecognisable.

My name is Jeffrey and I thought that this needed to be written down so that someone knows, someone remembers in the years to come, that the world ended and then, after a week, it started again. Someone needs to record the names and the dates and the places. Morgana suggested it first; she said that it should be me. I’m not sure what she meant by that, but here I am, writing it all down. For posterity or whatever it is that will come next.

I always looked at those plaques on battlefields. ‘Here in some date a battle was fought between the armies of blah and blah’ I never though about what happened to make that plaque, what was written down to be remembered, who watched the people in that battle die and survived to recall how things went.

I never thought that I’d be the person creating that history, but legends need to be recorded or they will never become legends.

It feels insane to be even writing this, but insanity has become normal in the last eight days: yesterday we recovered Excalibur and King Arthur was reborn.

King Arthur, the stuff of legends.

In years to come, people might read this and think that I am exaggerating, using artistic licence to make the story more sensational than it truly was, but I assure you I am not.

Merlin led us to the place where Excalibur was to be found. There were armies of the undead and other creatures, small, large, all sharing the desire to wipe out the human race surrounding it. Creatures I had never seen before, even in books. I was sure as we walked that we were walking to our deaths, but we walked onwards anyway. We had no other choice.

But as we approached, there came the beating of wings, huge wings, a sound that we had grown afraid of in the past days, a sound that meant death. I thought, at first, that it meant death still, until Merlin turned to us, his eyes golden, and assured us that the dragons were there to help us, not harm us. They had, he said, pledged allegiance to Arthur.

With the dragons on our side and Merlin and Morgana, the armies before us were not as menacing. Magic and fire swept aside all of the dead and the beasts were kept away from us.

But when we got inside the building, a tower block of flats, things became more complicated. No longer could the dragons help us, confined as we were, if they were to breathe flame over the building they would kill us as well. So we were forced to fight.

I should list our names here, they should be remembered: the brothers, Gawain and Gareth, Percival, Lance, Gwen, Will, Morgana, Merlin, myself and, of course, Arthur. We were forced to fight in close quarters. We were armed with guns, but our enemies had magic. Fire seemed to dance from their hands, bolts of lightning would attack us or our entire bodies would feel as heavy as lead, and it was then that Merlin stepped forward, holding his hand outstretched.

I had never believed in magic until the day the world ended, but it is impossible to doubt something that you have seen that clearly. He kept away the worst of the spells from us with shields and fought the magic so that we could fight with our hands. Arthur never strayed far from him, though it was unclear who was protecting whom.

Morgana was a swirling mass of power, she seemed to suck the light in and her hair blew in a wind that I could not feel. She took down more of the enemy than I would have believed possible.

The sword was on a floor above us and, with the electricity gone; we had no other choice but to take the stairs. Gawain stayed behind to watch our backs and help to protect our backs. It was the last time I saw him alive.

Morgana stayed with him, to keep magical attacks back, and the rest of us made it up the seven floors towards the place where Excalibur rested. She, somehow, managed to survive.

The battle on the seventh floor was fast and I couldn’t swear to any specifics in the blur of activity, I knew that everyone was fighting.

However, I do remember first laying sight on Excalibur; it lay on a table, blocked from us by people and magic. I have not seen many swords in my life, but this was the best of any I had seen and, from the moment we walked through the door, Arthur was drawn to it.

The call of it was almost audible in the air. Like a hum, I can only imagine how much stronger it must have been for him. It is his sword.

We fought our way towards it and finally Arthur took the sword up and the ground shook. Wind blew about, howling past my ears, and time seemed to slow as Arthur turned and speared a sorceress through the chest, the blade passing through her as easily as it passed through the air. She screamed. A sound so terrible that I thought my ears might explode from it. It seemed to go on and on, worse than fingernails on a blackboard, worse than metal on metal. It reverberated, but Arthur did not flinch.

He was spattered with blood, almost painted red with it, and his face was firm. He looked like he had been born to battle.

As she breathed out her life the undead armies crumpled to the ground, returning to their rest.

She must have been their leader, though we never learnt her name, and at her death, the others fell back, scared for their lives, though I do not believe we have seen the last of them. In the silence of the aftermath, while my ears were still buzzing from the force of that final screech, I saw Arthur turn to Merlin, who looked as exhausted as the rest of us and the King, for none of us doubted that now, said two words that I will never forget, and I will never truly understand.

“I remember.”

-

The world ended eight days ago, and this is the record of what happened on that day and the aftermath. My name is Jeffrey and I swear on my life, and the life of my guitar, that every word I write here is true. This is the tale of the return of King Arthur, the chronicle of the future of the kings of Britain.

-*-

Apocabigbang: Fic: Postremus Regum Britanniae; Merlin; R; Chapter 11

definewisdom — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 16:14:45 GMT

Chapter 10: A Shattered Skyline

Chapter 11: We Ride to War

He is lying by a lake, a man leaning over him. Arthur recognises him, though he has never seen him before.

“My Lord,” the man says, close to tears. Arthur doesn’t know why he’s crying, he himself feels more relaxed and relieved than he can ever remember. “What would you have me do? Any request I can fulfil for you, I will do it, I swear.”

“Take my sword, Bedevere,” Arthur says, knowing suddenly, as he has always known, that this is Sir Bedevere, a good man, his knight, his vassal. “Take it and throw it into the lake, then return to me and tell me what you see.”

Bedevere takes the sword from Arthur’s lax grasp, standing and bowing his head in acknowledgment of the order, then he disappears.

Arthur is dying, he can feel the life leaving him with every breath, but he is not scared of it, not any more. There is something freeing about death. There is nothing more that can be done to him now, nothing left for his enemies to throw at him. He is done, his path is ending.

It is relief that fills his mind.

Bedevere returns, but Arthur can see in his face, the furtive clench of his jaw, the twitch of his fingers, that he has not done as asked. It is a mighty sword, a beautiful piece of craftsmanship and Arthur understands his reluctance, but he promised Merlin that he would return it to these waters and he will keep that promise if it is the last thing he does.

Arthur knows that it will be.

“Bedevere,” he says, “I asked you to throw it into the water, and you have not done as I asked. You would deny the final request of your King?” The tears are flowing freely down Bedevere’s cheeks now, into his beard.

“No, my lord, I am sorry.”

He disappears again, leaving Arthur with his thoughts and his peace.

The second time Bedevere returns, he has still not done as Arthur asked and the King sends him away again.

The third time, though, Arthur feels the moment the sword is thrown, hurled into water reluctantly.

Bedevere returns again, eyes wide.

“My lord, I did as you asked, and as the hilt was about to hit the waves, a hand came up to grasp it and it held the blade aloft before pulling it down into the water and… My Lord…” Bedevere is looking to his left, out to the mists of the lake, and Arthur manages to twist his head to see what has caught his attention.

The boat is coming for him, the boat to his rest and to Avalon. Five figures sit in the boat, four queens and one cloaked man, hands twisted around a staff.

“And thus passes Arthur, King of Albion, from the mortal lands,” an amused voice says. Arthur blinks to see familiar green eyes staring back at him. “I thought you might go for a more ostentatious death myself.”

“Morgana,” he says. It is the last word he speaks while living.

“Yes, I am here.” She pauses, looking down at him almost fondly, almost ruefully. “I have been given a chance to redeem myself in this world by protecting you and Excalibur until you have occasion to rise again.” She frowns at him. “So try not to be too much trouble, will you?”

“You know him,” a familiar voice says from under the hood of the man’s cloak. He sits at the stern of the boat that the women are now depositing Arthur’s body in. “He never stays out of trouble.” Arthur doesn’t move his head, he has no control over his body, but he sees the huge grin from beneath the cloak anyway and, as he blinks in recognition his eyes opened in the here and now.

Merlin was standing over him, looking down with a grin.

“Wake up sleeping beauty,” he said, unrepentant. “Your turn on watch.”

*

They clustered around him loosely, looking up at his face like he held all the answers.

He was going to send some of these people to their deaths. Arthur looked at the faces and part of him wished he knew which would die and which would live, another part of him felt sick at the very idea of looking at any of them and knowing what he was about to do to them. He swallowed, taking a breath and let his eyes slide over to where Merlin stood, not facing him, but facing the crowd. He was trying to look calm, but there was a little panic in his eyes, barely there, but there nevertheless.

Arthur wondered if this would be the last time he saw that face alive like this.

“This is not the end of the world,” he said, his voice ringing out. “We are standing here because we are survivors and now, I will not say the end is in sight, because it is not the end, it is a beginning. I can see it clearly, and we need to grasp it with both hands.”

He faltered, looking around, they all trusted him, and he had no idea what he was doing, standing on a bench in the underground and giving a fucking speech. He remembered reading Wilfred Owen at school, all those war poems… Dulce et Decorum Est… That was what they had said to him as he went into battle the First World War. That was not what it was. It wasn’t about glory or how right it was to die for your country. It was about the fact that there was no one else to do it and you couldn’t stand back and let other people die while you survived at their expense. It was about what had to be done for survival. This was not like that; he would be with them and there was a cause, a reason.

Then why did he feel like he was tricking them still?

“There is still a weapon. You have heard of it, whispered among you. Morgana has spoken of it since I met her. Some of you have your doubts and I did too, until I saw something that made me believe.” He looked over at Merlin again, wondering what was going through his mind as he listened to Arthur’s words. “I believe that weapon is real and I now know where it is. If we can get to it then we can turn the tide.

“We have had no other choice, up until now, to hide, keep our heads down and hide from the monsters and the nightmares above us. We have gone underground to survive. But now we have a choice and we have an opportunity. We will get this weapon and we will get our world back.

“It won’t be easy,” he said, the understatement of the century. “But we cannot live like sewer rats forever. I don’t know about you, but I want to walk in the sunlight. I want to see the stars and I want to breathe air that tastes fresh. I don’t want to be scared anymore.” There was a rumble of agreement from the people around him. “I want to be free. I never realised it before this, but I never appreciated what it was to walk down the street without fear. I never appreciated what it was to see the sun come up in the mornings as I got up for work. I never appreciated having a pint down the pub with my best friend,” he shot Lance a small smile which was returned. There was no hesitation in that gaze, Lance was ready. He envied him the certainty that this was the right course of action.

His gaze slipped past him to Gwen, who nodded firmly, containing her fear with sheer force of will. He saw that, in another lifetime, she would have made a good queen – had made a good queen, he was sure.

On the other side of the group Gawain sat in his chair, his guns set out on his lap. He looked like a seasoned fighter, not someone who had only seen battle a few days before. At his side stood Gareth, a gash across his face from their last skirmish standing out livid red, even in the dim light. It aged him, he no longer looked thirteen, as Arthur had always privately though, he looked older than his nineteen years. He had the same look of fierce intensity his brother did.

Jeff, by his side, was moving nervously from foot to foot. He wasn’t a fighter and Arthur knew that he didn’t want to go, but the twist of his mouth said that he knew what the score was. He nodded as his eyes caught Arthur’s. I won’t let you down, he seemed to be saying. I’m not going to leave you to do this alone. Will, next to him was frowning in a way that Arthur knew without asking was hiding his fear. He didn't want to be here and his eyes were straying to the man by Arthur's side more than to Arthur himself.

Morgana stood with her hands held loosely out to her side. She looked every inch the warrior, and Arthur knew that she had been here before, had seen battles and wars. She had seen him like this before. The feeling was unnerving. He felt like she was weighing him up against himself.

His gaze returned to Merlin, still standing at his side like a bodyguard steady and firm. Another person who had seen this before, who knew the score better than even Arthur did.

“It’s not going to be easy. It’s not going to be fun. But someone’s got to do it and like it or not, that job has fallen to us. If the past few days have taught me anything it’s that we stand together and we have a chance. We stand together and anything’s possible. We stand together and… we can win.”

*

Epilogue: Postremus Regum Britanniae

Apocabigbang: Fic: Postremus Regum Britanniae; Merlin; R; Chapter 10

definewisdom — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 16:12:48 GMT

Chapter 9: The Call of the Dead

Chapter 10: A Shattered Skyline

The distraction worked, for the most part, the undead or zombies, as Arthur was definitely not calling them, went after Lance’s party instead of heading for Arthur and Merlin as they snuck away. He tried not to think of the risks involved, or of the fact that the pair of them might come back to find that they were the only ones still alive.

“So, you’re signing up for Morgana’s insane idea now?” he asked, when they were far enough away that he was positive the undead could not hear him.

“So what if I am?” Merlin asked, without looking back. “It’s the only sodding idea we have left.”

“We never had any other ideas in the first place,” Arthur pointed out. “Except for Tristan’s plan to nuke the place.” The name ached a little as he said it, but he hardened his jaw against it.

“Like I said,” Merlin told him, finally twisting round to shoot him a grin. “It’s the only idea we have left.”

Arthur couldn’t understand how the man could grin like that. The world was falling apart, had fallen apart and, in spite of impromptu concerts and Frisbee games in the dark, Arthur couldn’t forget that for a second. He didn’t think he had smiled in days.

But Merlin’s smile, it made his brain fizzle for a second, like there was something missing there. He could feel himself trying to remember something, but it slipped through his fingers. It was the same, sometimes, when Morgana spoke. He would hear her and then something in his brain would fire up. It was the same as when he had picked up that piping the first time, knowing exactly how to wield it as though he had been trained to fight with it. His muscles had remembered something his brain had not. Sometimes, when he thought about it, he thought that maybe Morgana wasn’t completely insane.

But he pushed that thought back again. He was not some fabled king: he was just a man making the best of a terrible situation. There was no destiny at work here, just bad timing and the devil’s own luck.

Then Merlin would smile again and he would be lost in that non-memory once more.

He shook off the feeling again. This was no time to doubt himself.

“How exactly is this going to work, anyway?” he asked, wondering why he hadn’t questioned the plan earlier. But Morgana and Merlin had seemed so certain, so determined, he hadn’t even thought about the details. “If this is another ‘I’ll be able to sense the sword because it is destiny’ thing then I’m going to have to disappoint you.”

“It’s not,” Merlin said, looking solemn. He looked like he wanted to say something more, but he didn’t. “I’m going to find it. You’re just here to look pretty.”

“Like you’d survive five minutes without me here. You look terrified.”

“This isn’t terror,” Merlin told him, sounding so certain of the fact that Arthur blinked and cast another glance back at him again. There was something different about him. In the last few days he had changed, like he was more himself in his own skin. If Arthur hadn’t already been attracted to him, he would have been now. But as it was the attraction felt more immediate, more real. The thought made him uncomfortable. This was the end of the freaking world as they knew it and he was busy ogling some man he barely knew.

He knew the psychology: affirmation of life and reinforcing the fact that they were still alive. He knew that the adrenalin and the testosterone were pumping through his blood and that was enough to make any man a little… on edge, but this wasn’t the time or the place and all of a sudden, seeing that look of determination and utter confidence on Merlin’s face was making him want to grab him by the collar and thrust him up against the nearest wall.

Something must have shown in his eyes because Merlin blinked and looked at him more carefully. Arthur had to look away. The last thing he needed was an awkward moment between himself and someone he was starting to, maybe, think of as a friend. He did what he always did in those situations, and covered it up with a joke.

“Don’t worry, I’ll protect you, my lady,” he said in his most chivalrous tone. There was a pause before Merlin chuckled.

“I don’t need your protection,” he said.

“Of course not,” Arthur said, relieved that the uncomfortable moment had never come. “When the undead come at you, I’m sure you’ll be very useful. You never know, you might trip over your own feet and knock it over.”

“I–” Merlin glared at him, as though there was something more behind his irritation than just a few words. “Some things never change.” He muttered and Arthur would have asked him what that meant, if he hadn’t been sure that he didn’t want to know.

“So, we’re heading for where exactly?” he asked.

“The London Eye,” Merlin said as they came to a stop at the next junction, darting his head around the corner for a moment to check the way was clear. “We’re fine,” he said, before walking out, Arthur close on his heels. “I need to have as complete a view of the city as possible. In a building I’d only really be able to see one direction at a time.”

“I didn’t think this sword was going to be that big,” Arthur said. “It might be a little awkward to handle.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ve never had a problem handling a sword,” Merlin said, the words sounding as though he wasn’t really aware of what he was saying, just an offhand comment that Arthur had to force himself not to splutter at. He wasn’t sure, at any one moment, whether the other man was flirting with him. It was so vague.

“That… that’s beside the point. I meant,” Arthur said, in a tone that meant ‘you are a complete idiot and I don’t know why I bother to talk to you in words of more than one syllable’, “how are you going to see it?”

“You’ll see,” Merlin told him, flashing another inane grin.

The quickest route, it turned out, was blocked by a crowd of blank, undead faces, so they had to go the long way round, down and round, then North towards the river.

Arthur had never been on the London Eye. He lived in London, after all, and it was really more of a tourist thing. Who needed to see the city from above when they already knew where things were.

Merlin, though, he looked like the kind of person who had queued up for the first day it was working. He’d probably been to the Millennium Dome as well.

He didn’t know what he was expecting to see when he got to the riverside to see it, but the broken, half nonexistent wreckage was not it. The spokes of the wheel were only half there, and one half of the wheel itself was practically gone. The pods, or whatever they were supposed to be called, were lying smashed and broken around them, except for the seven or eight that still clung on to the ruins.

“That’s the problem with modern building,” Arthur said idly. “It just isn’t built to last.” He hadn’t thought the comment was that funny, but Merlin began to laugh, loudly, even when Arthur shushed him, only too aware that there were things looking for them, very carefully. He grabbed Merlin by the arm and clapped a hand over his mouth, trying not to be aware of the warmth of his lips or the dampness of his breath. When he could finally feel that the laughter was dying down, he let go, self-consciously wiping his hand onto his jeans.

“Sorry,” Merlin whispered back, his eyes looked almost indulgent. “It’s just.., you have no idea how funny it is to hear you say something like that.”

“Why?”

Merlin sighed, shaking his head, and Arthur knew he wasn’t going to get an answer. Instead, he decided to change the subject, gesturing to the splintered wheel.

“I suppose that scuppers that plan then,” he said. “Brilliant Merlin. I love how much thought you put into this. Not to mention the fact that even if it wasn’t destroyed, there’s no electricity so we couldn’t have made it all the way to the top anyway. Brilliant. You know I was beginning to doubt your incompetence, but I can see my faith in your utter inability to do anything right wasn’t even slightly misplaced.”

“Arthur.”

“No need to explain. It’s my fault for listening to you and Morgana in the first place.”

He tried not to think of the others, and the fact that some of them might well be, probably were, dead by now just trying to give Merlin and him enough time to get away. Their lives lost for a fool’s errand.

“Arthur, I knew it wouldn’t be working,” Merlin said, cutting through Arthur’s next words, his voice tight with annoyance. “We planned for this.”

“And how exactly, are you going to rectify this situation?” Arthur asked, crossing his arms over his chest and waiting expectantly. Merlin tried not to rise to the bait as Arthur raised his eyebrows and pushed his lips together, unimpressed.

“Trust me,” Merlin said.

“That’s what you said about the bloody dragon,” Arthur pointed out

“I was right about the–” Merlin began, before shaking his head. “Why am I bothering to try and explain when I could just do this.” He turned abruptly to the riverside, where what had once been the London Eye towered over them in all its ruined glory. He extended a hand to it, palm out, fingers splayed; if Arthur hadn’t been watching his face, he probably wouldn’t have seen the flash of gold in Merlin’s eyes that made his jaw drop.

There was a groan of metal and, when Arthur turned back to the Eye, he could see it beginning to turn, even though there was no power and half of it was gone. He watched it in open mouthed shock.

“What?” he asked. Merlin turned to him, hand still extended, with a reckless grin.

“Magic,” he said, like it was the most brilliant thing in the world. Arthur wondered what it felt like, to do that, to move something like that with just a thought. He shuddered. “We should probably get on,” Merlin said as one of the few undamaged pods reached the bottom. They hurried into it, Arthur still unable to drag his eyes away from Merlin.

Griffins, dragons, trolls and unicorns… they were all very well. In the end they were all just animals. Big, odd and unusual animals, true, but animals nonetheless. Magic, the ability to extend a hand and change the world, an ability that Arthur could feel as they were lifted into the air, that was something else entirely. This was beyond some apocalyptic sign or other, this was deeper.

“You–” he said, and Merlin shrugged.

“Sorry, I was going to tell you before I did anything, but then you had to go and beyou so I just showed you.”

“Right,” Arthur said, trying to readjust his world view to allow for a magical Merlin. Just like the legends, his brain said, and he tried to squash it down again. “Can’t you make it move any faster?” he asked, his voice harsher as he tried to cover up his unease.

“Sorry, it’s quite big and I’m a bit out of practice.” Merlin shrugged.

“Trust you to be just as useless at this,” Arthur said, not meaning the words at all, which Merlin must have known because he smiled, not a grin but a small smile – almost sad.

“I’ve heard that before,” he muttered, another one of those comments Arthur wasn’t sure he was supposed to hear.

They reached the top eventually and Merlin halted it there, his forehead creasing in concentration for a second with the effort it took to stop tonnes of metal from moving. He was trying to avoid thinking about what was going on, and the fact that all that stood between him and a plummet to the ground, or maybe it was the icy waters of the Thames he would land in, was the concentration of a man he knew to have a very short attention span. He looked out across the city and he felt a tinge of awe and more than a little horror.

From the ground, the devastation was unbelievable on a personal level- you saw people dead, cars crashed and buildings crumbling. But from up here… He looked out at the world and he saw the big picture, possibly for the first time. He could see the huge cracks that the earthquake had caused, the bridges that had crumbled and fallen into the Thames. The Gherkin jutted out like a broken bottle into the skyline, all jagged edges of glass. He risked a glance at the Houses of Parliament and shook his head. The palace of Westminster was mostly gone and the clock tower was sheered clean in two.

He wanted to close his eyes to shut it all out. He loved this city, had grown up in it. The streets and landscape were as much a part of him as his hands or feet. He remembered going to see Number Ten with his father when he had been young, being raised up onto his father’s shoulders to get a clearer view, and thinking that this was where everything happened, this was the centre of the world.

He had grown up and he had understood that they were a tiny little island, getting swamped by all the bigger nations, clinging onto hope with their fingernails, but he had never quite lost that sense of awe when he saw the places he remembered from his youth.

Now all that was gone. His world had no centre.

“It’s not that bad,” Merlin said from next to him, and Arthur tried to school his features. “They’re just buildings.”

He turned to the man next to him and gaped openly.

“They’re not just buildings.”

“Most of the people who worked in them were useless anyway,” Merlin continued, trying to help but failing to understand so completely that Arthur couldn’t help staring at them.

“It’s not about the people, it’s about the system… the laws, everything that made our society and made us a country not just a group of people huddling together on a tiny island,” Arthur said. He had to try and make this clear, had to try and point this out.

“No,” Merlin said, quietly and calmly. “Believe me, it’s all about the people.”

He was watching Arthur so closely then, as though he was supposed to understand something in that statement that just was not there.

“It…” Arthur gave up, letting all the breath rush out of his lungs in one long sigh.

“Give me your hand,” Merlin said suddenly, smiling a little sadly. Arthur didn’t move his hands from the rail around the wall for a second. “Trust me.” He looked into Merlin’s eyes, and he saw that he did understand, somehow, he just did not agree. Arthur nodded slowly and held out his hand. Not far enough to touch Merlin’s, but enough to signal his agreement.

Merlin reached out the last few centimetres and grasped his hand tightly. His skin was warm, almost too warm and Arthur could feel a strange tingling sensation creep upwards from the contact, like a strange, enjoyable form of pins and needles.

He was still staring into Merlin’s eyes when the other man began to speak, low hissing nonsense words, he was still staring when he watched Merlin’s eyes glow golden again and then, suddenly it was as though he was connected to a million things at once. He again had that strange, overlapping sensation, where he could see two images superimposed.

Merlin stood in front of him at the top of the London Eye, his eyes gold, looking like he could take on the world, and Merlin stood before him, hair whipping in wind while their feet were on solid ground. His hand was extended and power crackled around him.

Arthur could feel the weight of the crown on his head, the one that Merlin had placed there, pulling him down to earth, and he could feel something in his hand, solid and sure, so comfortable and right. He flexed his fingers around it and knew that whatever it was it was his made for his hands, made for him, by Merlin.

He blinked and it was all gone and he was on his knees in the pod with Merlin crouching next to him, hand on his shoulder, and the other still clutched in his.

“I found it,” he breathed into Arthur’s hair, smiling.

“It’s all real, isn’t it?” Arthur replied, looking up at him with wide eyes. “Everything Morgana said – it’s real.”

“Yes,” Merlin said. “It’s real.”

“You’re… You remember,” Arthur said.

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Since the tower,” Merlin told him calmly, “since I put the crown on your head I knew. I knew that you really were my king.”

“And you didn’t tell me.”

“You wouldn’t have listened to me,” Merlin pointed out. “You had to see it for yourself. You remember now?”

“No,” Arthur said truthfully. “I don’t remember, but I know it’s true. I know I’m him. I know that I don’t have a choice.” Merlin shook his head suddenly.

“You have always had a choice,” he said. “Always, Arthur.”

It seemed strange to be having this conversation so high above the ground, caught in a glass bubble over the city. Arthur wasn’t even sure what this conversation was, really. An acknowledgement of the fact he knew, didn’t seem to cover it. There was something more beneath it, something in the way that Merlin was looking at him, with exasperated affection.

Arthur didn’t know why he did it, he would probably never know. But he had wanted to do it for hours, maybe days. Perhaps he had been wanting to do it since he had first seen Merlin sitting at the bar and felt the tug towards him that had made him panic. Perhaps it had even been longer than that, given what he was only just starting to believe. So Arthur gave in. Merlin still had the golden glow of magic in his eyes and he was still looking into Arthur, like there was so much he wanted to say. But now wasn’t the time so Arthur just kissed him.

It was messy and a little desperate with more than a hint of ‘last desperate million to one chance’ clinging to it. Merlin tasted of ash, spaghetti hoops and orange squash, but there was this fizz of magic behind it, sparking like electricity that Arthur just had to get more of. He reached out blindly for the back of Merlin’s head, pulling them as tightly together as he could manage, mashing their lips together so hard it was painful.

It felt like he should remember this, should remember the slide of tongue against tongue, the way their hands grasped at each other and Merlin sighed into him, almost melting away in his hands. He felt like he should remember the rush of the magic that was so clearly there. But it was all a blank, he could remember none of it and there was something curling in his stomach that felt like frustration.

He was about to push Merlin backwards and down, onto the floor of the pod, when hands that had been reaching for him started to push away.

“No,” Merlin said, as soon as they were far apart enough that Arthur couldn’t feel the heat of his breath him any longer. “You don’t... I might drop us.” That had not been what he was going to say, Arthur knew. But it was a valid point. “I got what we came for, so let’s get back.”

“Merlin,” Arthur said, slowly, but he couldn’t put it into words. He wanted to apologise for not being him, not being what Merlin needed, what the world needed right now. He was not King Arthur Pendragon, not in any way that mattered, he was still just Arthur Penworth, who preferred to spend his Saturday nights watching bad films and eating Chinese takeaway rather than fighting monsters.

Merlin pulled back further and Arthur felt a little like he was going to fall anyway, whether Merlin’s magic held them up or not. He looked out of the window again and he saw it differently this time, not a world in ruins but a world he had to save. His world and he was its only hope, so they kept saying.

He had thought his father put a lot of responsibility onto him – high grades at school, good university, good job, promotion after promotion. He had to meet the best people and be the best. But that expectation, that he had been trying to live up to all his life was nothing compared to this.

Merlin was looking at him like he could tell what Arthur was thinking and it only made Arthur angrier at the whole situation. He remembered the people down in the underground tunnels, waiting for him to give them orders, trusting him to keep them safe. And he thought of other groups of people, there must be more, scattered around the city, just clusters of scared strangers trying to survive. He thought of the conviction in Morgana’s eyes as she said that he was destined to rescue them from this hell and the look in Merlin’s eyes as he had made Arthur kneel in the shattered glass and placed a crown on his head.

There was something like love there, something like love there still, when he risked another glance at Merlin’s eyes. It was too much, pressing down on them. They were all waiting for him, believing in him and he was sitting at the top of the world with a magician and all he knew was that they were probably going to die.

He wanted to say that he couldn’t do it, wouldn’t do it. They would have to find another guy, another sucker to play their game. But he knew now that that wasn’t a choice. He had seen Merlin show him power beyond his imagination. He had seen images that were from a past that wasn’t his, not really, and he had heard the voices calling to him. He was the only one. He knew that. In the end it all came down to him. Those people who were left needed him, Merlin needed him.

So he had to be what they needed and keep his doubts and his lack of faith to himself.

He pulled himself to his feet and straightened his shoulders, nodding at.

“So,” he said, trying to sound as kingly as possible. “I think we need to go and see a man about a sword.”

Merlin did not look convinced, but, to his credit, he didn’t say a word, just nodded and set the wheel in motion again so that they made their slow downward arc to the ground.

They had a quarter of a turn to go when Arthur risked a look below them to the riverside.

“Merlin…” he said, in his best ‘I am not panicking’ voice.

“Yes, Arthur?” Merlin was concentrating on moving them, Arthur could tell, but this was definitely worth his attention.

“Do you think that maybe someone might have noticed the giant, broken Ferris wheel magically turning?”

“Perhaps,” Merlin admitted. “It does take quite a bit of magic to get it going, and that would be noticeable to someone who knew about magic.”

“Not to mention the fact that it is a giant, broken Ferris wheel, in the middle of London, visible from a lot of places?”

“That would make it noticeable,” Merlin agreed.

“That would explain why there’s an army of zombies waiting for us at the bottom then.”

“What?” Merlin gasped, and the wheel jerked downwards for a second, making Arthur’s heart leapt to his throat. “Shit! Shit shit shit.”

“Yes,” Arthur agreed. “That’s what I thought you’d say.”

“This is not good,” Merlin said, looking at the crowd of corpses that stood watching them make their descent.

“I thought, Merlin, that you had everything under control. I thought you said you’d planned this.”

“I had; I did. I just didn’t expect them to be so fast.”

“So now what are you going to do?” Arthur asked. After all, Merlin was magically inclined, if anyone was going to deal with an army of zombies, it might as well be him.

“Say hello?” Merlin suggested, obviously trying to raise a smile Arthur refused to give.

“Great plan, very impressive,” Arthur said nodding. “I give you five seconds before they rip you to pieces.”

“Fine, what’s your idea then?”

“Couldn’t you do some…” He wiggled his fingers vaguely.

“It’s amazing,” Merlin commented drily, “how your hand signals are exactly the same even after over a thousand years. You still think that magic consists of wiggling your fingers and speaking gibberish.”

“Doesn’t it?” Arthur asked, amused.

“No. It’s actually very complex and precise and I can’t just wave my hands and get rid of the zombies, all right? I’m already tired from getting us up here and I’m only just getting used to my magic again. Not to mention the fact that their very existence is caused by someone else’s magic and breaking that spell is about fifty times more difficult than making one of my own.”

“Couldn’t you just send them flying, or something?”

“Not enough to make a difference,” Merlin told him with a shrug of his shoulders. “We’re going to have to get out of this the old-fashioned way.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m not entirely sure,” Merlin admitted, “but in my experience, it involves a great deal of luck.”

The pod came to a halt at the pavement, and Arthur looked out of its glass door at the zombies waiting for them.

*

Merlin watched Arthur’s face carefully as he prepared to open the door of the pod. He had seen that look before a thousand times or more. It was the look he had seen on Arthur’s face the last time he saw him, more than a thousand years ago. The look that said: ‘if these are my last moments, I will not show fear.’

His lips still tingled from their kiss. He had not thought, since his memories came back, that he would ever be able to do that again, but it had happened.

He had been on such a rush from having found Excalibur. He had felt so connected to Arthur in that moment, to Arthur and to the earth that loved Arthur with every atom of its being. It had all been glorious and whole for a few seconds, even if Arthur didn’t understand it, and he had been carried away by the rush of magic in his veins and the knowledge that this was Arthur with him. Then Arthur had reached for him and he had gone, as he had always gone before and he always would. It had been so easy to forget that this was not the Arthur he had known, not yet anyway. This Arthur didn’t remember the last time they had stood together, side by side, watching each other’s back. He didn’t remember the devil-may-care grins they had shot each other and the way, when it was over and they had blood staining their clothes and skin, they had fallen into each other.

He had kissed him like he was still Arthur, and kissed him like he was still Merlin, and it had been for a few seconds exactly as he remembered. But then he had tasted the tinge of chocolate in Arthur’s mouth and felt his hand, free of sword calluses, against his neck and everything had come falling in again.

They were not who they had once been and he couldn’t let Arthur do this when he didn’t even really know what it was he was doing. So he had pushed him back and tried to act as professionally as possible.

Arthur was trying to be who he needed to be. Merlin could see it in the way he held his shoulders and the determination in his eyes. He was trying not to fail and to fulfil the standards that people were still setting for him. It was just so Arthur that Merlin wanted to kiss him again, gently this time, comforting, to try and communicate that he understood.

But there was an army of zombies outside of the door, and the part of Merlin that had grown up in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries was marvelling over how awesome that was, while the part of him that had seen magic when it still lived wild was just tired of it all. Over a thousand years and nothing had really changed. It was still the two of them against the world.

He swung the door open as Arthur readied his shotgun. Merlin needed no weapon other than himself really, tired as he was.

He had never been any good with weapons anyway, that was no different in this life than in the last. He would leave the fighting to Arthur and he would handle the magic.

“Ready,” Arthur said. Merlin nodded his agreement, unwilling to put voice to it in case he lost his nerve or made some ridiculous comment that distracted them both, like he always seemed to. He just gave a jerky, firm nod and drew in a deep breath.

They stepped out and saw the zombies begin to lurch forwards.

One at the front, who had once been a woman, well dressed with blood red nail varnish and a huge gaping hole in her stomach, stepped forward ahead of the others. Her head lolled unnaturally, like a puppet held up by mismatched strings, and her eyes were glazed and unseeing, but her mouth opened. As she stepped forward there came a sound that Merlin thought might be his heart beat, except it did not come again.

“Emrys,” she said and Merlin felt his blood congeal. “So it is you who have been hiding him from us. I had hoped you would not be reminded of your magic until it was too late, but now it is that which has led us to you. Irony is amusing, don’t you think?” There was a strange echo effect and it took Merlin a second to realise that it was because not only the woman spoke. She was the foremost person, but every one of the zombies was speaking in unison. The effect made shivers run up his spine.

Merlin did not respond to her words. He knew that whoever it was speaking to him through these things that had used to be people, was the person behind all of this.

“You will both die,” she said.

“No,” Arthur said suddenly, stepping forward, raising his gun with apparent calm until it was levelled at her head. Only Merlin could tell, from the slight twitch of the muscles in his neck, that Arthur was far from calm. “We won’t.” He pulled the trigger and the woman’s head exploded, spreading blood everywhere, thick, cold and congealed. Merlin could feel it spatter across his face, but he didn’t have the time to be disgusted. The body hung for a second, still held up by the final strings, until it crumpled into a heap on the pavement. The almost-heartbeat came again, louder this time

“You cannot stop me, Pendragon,” the rest of the army said as one. “Your petty defiance is nothing more than an inconvenience. You think merely since you have been joined to the earth as its ruler, that you are somehow destined to win this battle. You put too much faith in the visions of seers, as Emrys once put too much faith in the words of a dragon.”

On that word Merlin realised that the noise he had been hearing was not his heartbeat, but the beat of a dragon’s wings. It came again, louder still and all of them standing on the edge of the river were buffeted backwards by the sudden flow of air. A shadow came to rest over them and Merlin risked a look up, where every one of the reanimated corpses was looking, to see a large, brown dragon perched atop the remains of the London Eye. The structure bent and groaned under the weight ominously. If it were to collapse then both he and Arthur would be crushed but, given that there was a dragon standing over their heads, structural instability was the least of their worries.

“At least we’ll die quickly,” Arthur said, his face still a careful blank.

Merlin glanced back at the zombies and saw something strange. He had expected some sort of glory in their defeat a ‘prepare for your deaths’ speech at the least, but instead every single one of the puppet people was staring at the dragon in shock.

The air rushed backwards, and their hair whipped as the dragon drew in a deep breath, staring down at them with sharp amber eyes. It did not speak, it did not have to. It was the biggest threat it could ever give.

Merlin saw the flash of the fire; he prepared to raise a shield, aware that it would likely not be much good in his current state of exhaustion, not to mention the fact that he had not cast the spell in more than a millennium. He felt the heat, burning at his skin, almost painful, but not quite. He felt Arthur pull him to the ground, wrapping his body over him, like some sort of human shield, despite the fact that Merlin was the more likely to survive – stupid, self-sacrificing idiot – and then he waited for the pain.

It never came. There was just the heat, almost unbearable, hotter than anything he had ever felt before. Hotter than that one sauna he had been in, when Will had insisted and he hadn’t been able to come up with a good excuse. He remembered the air burning his skin and that seemed to pale next to this heat.

He could barely breathe because every breath he drew burnt his lungs. He dug his fingers into Arthur’s arm, where it wrapped across his stomach.

Then, as soon as it had come, it was gone, although the air took a while to cool down. But soon the breeze that blew was unbelievably cool on his skin and Arthur was pulling himself away, confused.

Merlin looked out to where the zombies had been standing, and all he saw was heat haze over the melted and charred street. Ripples of the ground, scorched, cracked and blackened earth, moved like a mirage.

Next to him Arthur stared at the empty space in awe.

“Emrys,” a deep voice rumbled from above them and they both looked up to see the dragon staring down at them. “You have earned my faith,” it said, leaning so close that Merlin thought it might fall on top of them. Its huge head snaked down so that they were almost on a level. Arthur gaped.

“You’re the dragon,” he said, “the one from the tunnel.”

“Yes, your highness,” the dragon said, inclining his head in what was unmistakably a box.

“I told you I was right,” Merlin said, a little smugly.

“That time,” Arthur admitted, grudgingly.

“You are the rightful king,” the dragon said, turning its burning amber gaze onto Arthur. True to form, even without his memories, Arthur stood his ground and Merlin had rarely felt so proud. It was like watching Arthur back in Camelot, a young prince again, finding his feet and learning what it was to be a good man and a good king. “The dragons have been gone from this world for many centuries and we have forgotten much about it.

“We are not used to the idea of bowing to a man. We have forgotten much we once knew of destiny and life here. We can see far, but sometimes we do not see clearly.” He spread his wings and jumped down from the top of the wheel to the ground, gracefully for such a large and seemingly ungainly creature. “We once swore ourselves to protect this land, for we are of it and we owe it much. In order to hold to that promise we must protect its chosen ruler also and that is you, young king.”

The bow that happened then, Merlin would never forget. The dragon was so large, bigger than a house and it spread its wings and stepped one foot back to bow down to Arthur, so deeply that its nose brushed the floor.

“You have my allegiance,” it said, “and I will speak to the other dragons. We will be the slaves of selfish magic no longer. We are the servants of the land.”

“As am I,” Arthur replied, returning the bow just as deeply. “I thank you for your aid and I am grateful for your assistance.”

“Should you have need of me, have Emrys call,” the dragon said. “He will know what to do.”

“I will,” Arthur said, managing to sound regal somehow, even through the confusion Merlin knew he must be feeling.

The dragon nodded once before leaping off the ground, beating its wings to get away. The downdraft almost forced Merlin to his knees, but he managed to stay upright, just barely. Arthur next to him hardly seemed to notice it and, as the wind whipped his hair away from his forehead and he stared up at the dragon as it flew away, he looked like the king that Merlin remembered, so much it made him ache with the knowledge that it wasn’t him and might never be.

“We need to go back,” Arthur said, without even pausing. “We’ve been gone long enough and the others…” He didn’t need to finish that sentence, Merlin knew what he meant. They needed to know the others were still alive.

*

Chapter 11: We Ride to War

Apocabigbang: Fic: Postremus Regum Britanniae; Merlin; R; Chapter 9

definewisdom — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 16:09:39 GMT

Chapter 8: Memory is a Tricky Thing

Chapter 9: The Call of the Dead

It was five days after the end of the world had begun that the dead began to rise.

The first sign of this was the suddenly deserted street that had previously been littered with bodies. When Arthur and his recovery party first stuck their heads out of the tube entrance, they had been met with a world like the Marie Celeste. The cars were still parked sideways, the buildings still open, but the bodies that had been lying there were gone, vanished into thin air.

“I don’t like this,” Arthur said, looking around, he could see a similar expression on the faces of Lance and Tristan, but then Tristan’s face was always twisted in suspicion. Arthur was never sure whether it was a side effect of the whole apocalypse thing, or if Tristan had always been cynical, but it seemed appropriate.

Percival looked around and smiled faintly though.

“The army,” he said, nodding to himself. “The authorities have started cleaning up the bodies.”

“There are no authorities,” Tristan said, glaring at the back of Percival’s head. “There’s no one out there but the bastards who are behind all of this, and maybe another few handfuls of survivors, growing smaller day by day. No army is going to sweep through and make everything better. That’s not what armies do.”

“How else do you explain the clean up, then?” Percival asked, adjusting his tie. Arthur resisted the urge to roll his eyes. You couldn’t pick your companions these days and, if Percival insisted on wearing a full suit at all times, then they would have to accept that.

Lancelot, who had moved ahead, bent down to pick something up, as he turned around Arthur realised that it was a severed arm and fought down the bile in his throat.

“I think a clean up crew would have noticed this,” Lance said, laying the limb down again gently. “I say we get what we need and we get down, out of sight again as quickly as we can.”

“I agree,” Arthur said quickly, before Percival could interrupt. “Let’s try the shop over there.”

It was a small newsagent. Drinks, chocolate, paper, some pasties and things that hadn’t gone off yet and a variety of toiletries. Arthur scooped armfuls of things into baskets and bags, noticing Tristan helping himself to cigarettes from behind the counter. The boy couldn’t have been sixteen – probably more like fourteen – but it wasn’t like they were going to shorten his life expectancy at this point.

“Batteries,” Lance said, like he had found hidden treasure. He grabbed as many packets as he could and stuffed them in his pockets, all sizes.

“Hey!” Tristan said, sounding happier than Arthur had ever heard him. “They’ve got Frisbees here, and kids’ tennis.”

“Hardly essentials,” Percival pointed out. “I’m sure we have better things to do than waste our time on childish luxuries.” Arthur thought for a moment, looking at Tristan as he put back the cheap plastic toys a little reluctantly. They could do with something to take their minds off things. So far their nights were spent listening to Jeff and his guitar or huddling together around their small heaters, trying to imagine they were miles away.

“Good idea,” he said to Tristan, “Grab a couple of things.” The boy did not smile, he was too teenage and cool for that, but there was a definite lifting of his perpetual frown.

Arthur looked down at the newspapers on the stand, and the glossy covers of the magazines. Headlines so trivial in hindsight: bankers’ bonuses and upcoming elections. He wondered if, had the presses survived another day or two, they would have been full of ‘THE END IS NIGH’ or ‘APOCALYPSE NOW?’

The paper made good kindling though, so he took a few broadsheets anyway, tucking them in the edge of a time, and imagined the chancellor’s face darkening to ash before burning away entirely.

Politics and politicians, so confident in their own ability to screw up the world, and then everything had gone to hell. None of that had survived.

Thinking about it, the way everything had crumbled so easily, made Arthur feel like he was walking a tightrope. Everything he had ever known was solid and consistent had gone, disappeared and burnt away. Life had changed irreconcilably. Survival was now everything.

“Hey,” Percival said. The other three looked over at him, where he stood by the door, looking out through the empty frame. “I told you.”

“Told us what?” Arthur asked, stepping forwards so he could see more clearly out of the shop.

Walking down the street, in the dazed stride of the drunk or shocked, there were a handful of people.

“That things were getting back to normal. The army is probably evacuating the city,” he said, stepping out through the door. “I’ll just go and ask them what’s going on.”

Arthur remembered Gwen talking in the dark about the people being herded from their homes, the lines walking vacantly in synch, as though hypnotised, and then he looked back at the people walking down the street. They did not look normal. There was something in the way they moved that was almost a lurch, something in the way they made the hairs stand up on the back of his neck that made him shiver uncontrollably.

“Percival,” he said, keeping his voice low. “I think you should come back inside.”

“Nonsense, Arthur. We need to get out of here. I’m not going to miss my ticket out of here just because you’re paranoid.”

It’s not paranoia if everyone really is out to get you, Arthur almost said back, but Lance tapped his shoulder once to attract his attention.

“What?”

“Look at those people, look carefully,” Lance said. There was a hint of fear in his voice that Arthur could never remember having heard before, it chilled him to the bone. He looked again, more carefully, and he could see what Lance had meant. He could see what had him so uneasy.

They weren’t completely people who were walking past them. Not that they weren’t people, but they weren’t all of people. Of the ones he could see, one was missing an arm, another had half their face gone, one was blackened and charred down one whole side of their body, and many were missing parts of their torso.

“Are they?” he asked, knowing that Lance and Tristan could only know as much as he did.

“I think…” Lance trailed off.

“Percival!” he whispered as loudly as he dared. “Get back here, NOW!” Percival turned around, but that movement was enough to attract the attention of the… things lurching, Arthur couldn’t deny the word any longer, lurching down the street.

“What, Arthur?” he said.

“Arthur,” there was an eerie echo around the street and Arthur didn’t realise for a second that it was not the reverberation of Percival’s voice, but the people, the walking wounded (wounded, not dead, because Arthur’s world refused to be turned that far upside down) speaking in unison. “Arthur.”

It was an effect that he thought belonged only in horror films, a hundred voices speaking his name, calling to him eerily, like they were beckoning him to join them.

“Arthur?” Percival asked, taking a step backwards. The people in the street stepped towards him again.

“We have to get out of here,” Lance pointed out, bringing Arthur back to himself again, and he shook off the strange trance that that call had put him in. The people were still moving forwards, but Percival seemed frozen to the spot, stuck there, like a child playing stuck in the mud or musical statues.

“We can’t leave him there,” Arthur pointed out, stepping towards the door, but Lance held him back, firmly.

“You’re not going out there,” he said.

“Arthur,” the people said again, “Hail Arthur,”

“What the…” Arthur said under his breath.

“Greetings Mortal King,” they said, still in chorus, like they spoke with one voice, one brain controlling them. “Come out, come out, King Arthur.”

“Bloody, fucking hell,” Arthur swore, “Not them as well.” He looked at Lance, hoping for a glimmer of amusement, but there was only serious concern as his friend scanned the back of the shop.

“We will kill you quickly, insect king,” the corpses promised, before wheezing out a rasping laugh, like a death rattle. “We will crush you and it will be over.”

“Arthur,” Lance whispered fiercely into his ear. “I don’t know what to believe right now, but they seem to be after you and that makes me think that Morgana’s right. You’re important. If they kill you…”

“They’re going to kill Percival,” he pointed out.

“I’ll get him,” Lance said.

“No,” Arthur said, stubbornly. Percival might be a prick, he might be the most infuriating, ridiculous human being that Arthur had ever had the mischance to meet, but he was under Arthur’s protection.

Arthur couldn’t remember at that time that he just worked in an office, that he had never had anything more important to protect than a few private documents. That was all past.

“One man,” Lance said, brutally honest. “He’s one man, Arthur. There are more people out there than that, and how can you protect them if you die here, die now. Morgana’s plan is the only thing we have going right now, it’s the only thing giving people hope. If you die then that’s gone, nothing left. It’s just us then, no destiny, no fate on our side. You might not believe in that, but other people do, and that’s what matters.”

“I can’t just watch.” Arthur said.

“No… but you can run,” Lance told him. “There’s a door at the back, there’s probably a back door to the building as well. We can get out that way. One man or everyone, that’s the choice, and I know you don’t like it, but that’s how it is.”

“Why can’t we save everyone?”

“Because life sucks,” Tristan said, setting down the bags he still carried.

Out on the street Percival still stood, rooted to the spot, and the dead crowded round him, close enough to reach out and touch.

“Arthur,” they said still, always, on and on, like a stuck record. “Arthur, Arthur, Arthur, ArthurArthurArthurarthurarthurarthur,” until his name meant nothing anymore, just meaningless noise.

He fought against Lance’s arms, guilty that he wasn’t trying harder as he allowed himself to be dragged back, but then Tristan was running forward, out of the door.

“No! You idiot!” Lance shouted, as Arthur bellowed in impotent rage. It was getting out of his control. For a minute there he had almost believed it, believed he could save them without a plan, with nothing more than hope.

But Tristan was fast and Lance was still holding Arthur back, neither of them could stop him. He was out of the door so quickly, and at Percival’s side, smacking him round the face, and then Percival regained control of his limbs and they were running,

Arthur found he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t struggle any longer, as Percival and Tristan ran back to the door. Percival got through first and Tristan, held up behind him, a shield between Percival and the living dead, was caught from behind. He shook off a hand, managing to get one foot through the door, but another hand and another came back to hold him and pull him back, away again, until he was forced off his feet, dragged along the ground.

Lance didn’t let Arthur go after him, Percival didn’t even look back; they were hurtling towards the door, Arthur’s feet working on automatic. Finally, the switch had been flicked inside him. The fight or flight reflex chose flight, and all he could think about was running, still holding on to the food. He knew they needed that still. They needed to survive.

Tristan’s face was etched on the back of his eyelids so he told himself not to blink, run through the corridor, barrel down the back door and out into the alley behind the building. Right he went, following Lance back towards the underground entrance.

He didn’t look back. He did not know how fast those… bodies could move, but he hoped that the lurch was their fastest pace.

He was only dimly aware of Lance and Percival running at his sides, both also clutching their bags of loot.

When they emerged onto the main street, there was no sign of anyone else – alive or dead, just the abandoned cars they were used to. The station entrance was ahead, and they almost fell down the stairs, tripping over their own feet in their own eagerness to get down.

It wasn’t until they were out of sight of the entrance that they finally came to a stop. They were at least two stops away from their own ‘base of operations’ so to speak and there was silence apart from their ragged breaths. They stayed silent for a long moment, listening frantically for the hollow call of a hundred dead voices.

“We shouldn’t have left him,” Arthur said, glaring at the wall, before punching it soundly.

The pain shot up his arm from his knuckles, a wave of sensation that released something inside him. He pulled his arm back to do it again, but his arm was grasped from behind. He turned round, expecting to see Lance there, but it was Percival who was holding his forearm, looking serious.

His tie was half undone, the top button ripped from its thread, and the jacket of his suit was torn and filthy from running too close to walls, cars and lampposts.

“If you’re going to hit something,” he said, sounding terrified, “then it should be me. It’s my fault. I…”

“I’m not going to hit you,” Arthur told him, firmly, though there was a part of him that wanted to punch him right in the nose, to see blood spurting down. It would not help.

Tristan was gone, he told himself. He had known their number would diminish, he had known that he was not leading them to salvation. He had known that the light they saw at the end of the tunnel was probably just the orange glow of dragon’s fire.

“I should have moved, as soon as I saw… As soon as I saw…” Percival turned and began to retch against the wall, his guts, what he had in them, emptying all over the ground. Arthur couldn’t quite bring himself to feel sympathy for him, couldn’t summon up any emotion other than the burning rage that smouldered and sparked in the pit of his stomach. The fear was gone now and it made him angry that he had been afraid at all; he was angry that Percival had been stupid, angry that Lance had held him back, angry and himself for not being able to keep them all safe, angry at Tristan for saving the life of someone he hated.

But he didn’t speak, he wanted to shout, but he didn’t bellow out his rage. He took a breath and crushed it down inside himself, feeling one more finger give way where he clung onto the edge of his sanity.

“We need to get moving,” he said, looking over to where Lance stood, unable to watch Percival any longer.

“Yes,” Lance agreed, nodding.

They did not talk as they made their way back to camp, picking up what remained of the things they had taken from the shop.

Their legs fell into synch with each other with no conscious effort, until their footsteps sounded together. They walked apart a way, though, holding a safe distance between each other, unwilling to look either way or touch their companions.

When they made it back to their makeshift camp, the excited greetings of their arrival quickly fell into a shocked silence as people noticed their expressions and the lack of Tristan, who had never spoken very much anyway, was suddenly felt like a gaping wound.

Arthur looked over to where Merlin and Morgana sat together, somehow separate from the rest now, over a fire and he gave them as meaningful a glance as he could muster. They needed to talk.

Merlin nodded, a little nervously and a little resigned, Morgana looked almost amused.

Arthur wanted to wipe the smile off her face, but he rolled his hands into fists and swallowed the rage down again.

*

“I lost him,” she snapped, pulling herself away from the minds of the dead violently. Across London millions of bodies dropped to the ground, as though their strings had been cut. “I had him, I couldn’t see him, but he was cornered, and then I lost him. All I got was some boy, some idiot child who was willing to die for him.

“Perhaps next time?” a tall, emaciated looking man suggested from the corner of the chamber. He leant on a tall staff, and the wrinkles of his face had settled into deep angry lines that made him look like he was permanently sneering.

“There might not be a next time?” she yelled at him, her voice rising to almost screech like proportions.

“Patience,” he counselled, not perturbed by her outcry. “We have waited for this world for millennia, ever since we were cast out of it, since the powers of humanity sealed us on the other side of the boundary. Since they dared to banish us – the powers and beings that they had worshipped and feared. We can wait a few more days to crush their puny King.”

“Waiting does not come naturally to me,” the Lady sad ruefully, lifting one hand to examine the long red curves of her nails.

“We were around before them, and we will still exist when they were long gone,” the man said soothingly. “We have the blade, their only possible weapon, so there is nothing they can use against us. Even their magic is less than nothing to us.”

“I will pick them off one at a time, if I must,” she said, relaxing again as her face curled into an expression that could only be called a smile, though no smile so cold and cruel had been seen on this side of the boundary for millennia. “I will make the boy-King beg for death. I will show him that he can save no one.”

*

“You can’t save everyone,” Gwen told him, patting his arm in a way that was meant to be assuring, but Arthur couldn’t look at her, couldn’t accept clichés and platitudes.

“Right,” he said, as calmly as possible. She frowned and walked away.

The enthusiasm over the new goods was muted, though no less because of it. The batteries were greeted like they were made of gold, and the drinks – water, juice and fizzy, were passed around gratefully.

Someone, Arthur didn’t know whether it was Percival or Lance, had picked up Tristan’s bags, on the way out. He wondered whose brain had been working well enough to even think of it, and the cigarettes were found, with a couple of lighters and, also, the Frisbees.

A moment of silence passed as Gawain drew one out of its bag and hit a button that made lights start to flash all around the rim. Then someone, somewhere, began to laugh.

It spread like wildfire, creeping up on people, until half of them were helplessly giggling, though no one knew what was so funny.

Eventually, everything had been sorted out and packed away, and Will, Percival and Gareth had gone down onto the rails to play with the Frisbee.

Jeff pulled his guitar round and started to strum, the resonating chords were a familiar sound these days.

“So clever, whatever, I'm done with these endeavours…”

Arthur let the words blur past him, taking a sip of the last bottle of whisky they had, before passing it on to Lance who sat beside him.

“It's not enough, it never is, but I will go on until the end…”

He stood up, looking around the small circle they made, Gawain, above them all for once, talking to Will and Merlin, Gwen and Lance trying not to make it obvious that they were sitting practically on top of each other, Morgana, still separate from the rest, her head on one side as she stared into the light of the few torches they had turned on.

Arthur caught her eye, and began to move away, knowing she would follow him. He picked up his own torch as he went, into the colder parts of the station, shivering as he got further away from the small heat source.

“They were…” he said as he turned around to speak to her. “They were calling my name.”

“What did they say to you?” Morgana asked, unsurprised.

“That’s it?” he asked, “Not ‘who’ or ‘how did they know’ or ‘that’s strange’?”

“You’re Arthur,” she said, shrugging, “It would be stranger if they didn’t know your name, and as for who, Lance already told me, when you were making the… official announcement.”

Arthur shuddered, he couldn’t remember the words he had used to tell everyone about Tristan’s death, but he knew he had somehow done it.

“The dead walk the earth,” she said, “in more ways than one.” She stared into the darkness beyond Arthur for a long moment, before shaking off her trance and nodding. “I always hated reanimating corpses; it’s such a horrible way of doing things.”

“How…?” Arthur asked, still not able to get his head around the whole ‘dead walk the earth’ part.

“A powerful sorcerer, or sorceress,” Morgana told him. Arthur bit back a sarcastic ‘of course’. Magic was still not something he wholly believed in, but if there were dragons and zombies around, then the concept was looking more plausible. “Most likely someone with an affinity for earth magic.”

“What?”

“Earth to earth, ashes to ashes,” Morgana muttered, “dust to dust. The new religion tends to be a bit hit and miss on some of the finer points of lore, but that part it got right. Human bodies might be mostly water, but they are things of earth and they return to earth. It’s why burial is so common. Necromancy is rooted in earth magic. It- but then you don’t want to know the ins and outs.”

“Not particularly,” Arthur said. “I want to know how they knew my name.”

“Did they talk individually or as a group?” Morgana asked, all business once again.

“As a group.”

“Then it wasn’t them that knew your name. It was whoever was controlling them. He or she used them as a mouthpiece to speak to you.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“Yes, it means they also use their eyes and their ears. They see everything the dead see and hear everything the dead hear. Essentially, whoever is in charge now has millions of spies and they are all focussed on you.”

“I should leave,” Arthur said immediately.

“No, you shouldn’t.”

“If I’m what they are searching for then I should go away, help the rest of you stay safe.”

“Without you, we’re all dead, and you’re no good on your own. Two lifetimes and I still haven’t managed to get that through your thick skull,” Morgana snapped, frowning.

“I don’t believe that I’m some prophesied saviour, Morgana. Staying here I just put you at risk.”

“They knew your name, Arthur. What else did they say?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“They just spoke rubbish,” he told her, shrugging and looking away. “Nothing important.”

“What did they say?”

“They… they called me King Arthur, they said they would kill me quickly,” he told her, twisting his mouth to make the words ooze with scorn.

“And you still refuse to believe me?” Morgana asked, laughing. “The dead call you king and you still insist on believing that you’re unimportant.”

“I’m not a king.”

“Merlin crowned you, didn’t he?” she asked. Arthur blinked, remembering the strange rush he had had as Merlin placed that crown on his head.

“Merlin told you about that?” he asked. “It was just some fun… it was the crown jewels, and it wasn’t as though it was a proper coronation or anything.”

“Yes, it was. You’re king again Arthur, but you need Excalibur.”

“Ah yes, the mythical weapon… I was wondering when that would come up-” He was going to continue, but he heard his name, spoken in a way that chilled him to the bone.

“Arthur,” came the call again. He started, turning round in shock, but all he could see was the rest of their group around the heater again. He realised that the words were coming from Percival. He stepped forward, ready to stop the idiot from relating the tale, but Morgana stopped him with a gentle hand on his arm.

“They don’t need to know,” he snapped at her, angry again that she was fuelling this absurd hero worship idea.

“Yes they do,” she said. “It’ll help.”

“It’ll just make them believe your craziness more,” he pointed out.

“How is that a bad thing?”

“False hope will get us all killed.”

“With no hope at all we might as well be dead anyway.”

*

“Arthur,” Merlin called, quiet enough that his voice was drowned by the rugby songs that Jeff, Gareth and Gawain were teaching Percival at the other end of the platform, on one of the cold plastic seats. Arthur looked up from where he was sitting next Lancelot. The two had been discussing things in hushed voices for a couple of hours now, lit only by Arthur’s torch. “Can I talk to you?”

There had been a time, not in this lifetime, of course, but there had been a time when all he would have needed to do was give Arthur a significant look and the king would have automatically dismissed anyone else, or separated from the group he was talking to. There had been a time when Arthur had been as able to understand him as he was now able to understand Arthur.

Lancelot was looking at him shrewdly, like he could read Merlin’s intentions as clearly as Morgana really could.

“What is it?”

“I…” He debated for a moment asking to speak to Arthur alone, but there was no need, Lancelot’s presence might actually help him. “I think Morgana’s right.”

Arthur’s double take was almost worth it, and Merlin had to bite his lip to hold back the grin that was threatening him. No matter how dark it got, whether it was wars or unexpected apocalypses – was that even the plural of apocalypse? – as long as he was him and Arthur was Arthur he would always manage to find something to smile about.

“Don’t tell me what she’s got is infectious,” Arthur said, but there was something under his words that made even Lancelot blink. Merlin couldn’t keep this smile back, Arthur’s voice sounded almost like it had used to. There was an undercurrent of affection, warmth and almost connection. It was as though that moment in the Tower when he had joined Arthur to the earth, or whatever it was that Morgana had said, he had rebuilt the connection between himself and Arthur as well.

He wondered for a second whether Arthur had recovered his memories, but he couldn’t see a deeper recognition in Arthur’s eyes, just that connection.

“No it’s just- I think- I think we need to find the sword.”

“The magical world-saving sword.”

“I don’t think it’s as simple as that,” Merlin muttered. He knew it wasn’t. He knew that Excalibur wouldn’t make everything magically better, it would just give them the chance to win, the outside chance. The odds arranged against them, especially with the new armies of zombies (and Merlin was simultaneously horrified and fascinated by that. It was strange but since his memories had come rushing back, he had found himself marvelling at the skill and power involved in every aspect of the forces against them. You would need to be skilled in working with every element and have the power to sustain it. He had not mentioned it to Morgana, but he had no clue whether or not he was going to be good enough to overpower them).

“I know. It’s just that Morgana always seems to say that as long as I have this sword everything will work out.”

“Morgana is oversimplifying,” Merlin said without thinking. Arthur’s eyes narrowed.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing, just that she’s trying to keep people believing, and they need to see some hope.”

“So they’ll work hard to get this sword and then they’ll expect everything to magically get back to normal as soon as I’ve got it?”

“I don’t think normal’s a word that really exists at the moment,” Lancelot interjected. They both looked at him for a moment, and the tension seemed to flow out of the atmosphere.

“I don’t know whether to be relieved or to worry,” Merlin commented, sighing a little. “I always hated the idea of being normal, but if that doesn’t exist then…”

“Maybe we are normal,” Lancelot pointed out.

“What were you going to say?” Arthur asked, interrupting them, clearly uncomfortable. If Merlin knew Arthur, which he did, then he had probably spent his life trying to live up to normal and better than normal. Everything he had fought for before had disappeared. Merlin’s life, even before the… slight past life issues… hadn’t been anything to write home about (or email home about, if you were keeping up with technology). A job he didn’t understand, Will and enough money to survive, but not enough money to live.

“Morgana and I have a plan to find it.”

“Of course you do,” Arthur said with a sigh. He looked at Merlin with amusement again, another thing that Merlin had not been expecting.

“Look, it just needs you and me,” Merlin told him. “No one else needs to get involved.”

“If you hadn’t noticed, there’s an army of dead bodies marching around up there, with my name on their lips,” Arthur told him. “If we go out we’re not going to get further than three streets away before we’re ripped to pieces. I’ve already lost one. I’ve already lost Tristan; I’m not going to lose you as well, whether you want to try some stupid suicidal search for an imaginary weapon.”

Arthur, while he had no problems going out on his own, he wouldn’t take anyone else out to die with him if he could help it.

“I know the problems,” Merlin pointed out, “I’m choosing to do this; it’s not your fault if anything happens to me.”

“I’m in charge,” Arthur pointed out. “You talked me into it and now you expect me to ignore that.”

“That’s not what I’m asking,” Merlin said, but he could already see in the set of Arthur’s jaw that he wasn’t having any of it. He sent a wordless plea to Lancelot, hoping that, as he had done before, the knight – no, not knight any more – could help Merlin out.

“Distraction,” Lancelot said out of the blue.

“What?” Arthur asked.

“We’ll provide a distraction,” Lancelot expanded. “You two slip out through another exit and we’ll make sure that people are looking in another direction. You said it was like one person was operating the… puppets, one person can’t pay attention to everything at once.”

Merlin wanted to drop his head into his hands; Lancelot had just tried to distract Arthur from the idea of sacrificing one life with the idea of sacrificing everyone. There was no way…

“You can’t–”

“We’re not getting out of here, Arthur,” Lancelot said. “We’re hemmed in like animals, there’s nowhere safe. No one’s saying it, but we either die down here or we die out there and I’d prefer the monsters to starvation or freezing to death, or waiting for them to find us. It won’t take very long for them to think to look underground. It’s the most obvious place. We’re just lucky that the Tube is so extensive.”

“Lance…”

“You might be in charge, but that’s only to solve disputes, to make the difficult decisions if other people can’t. I can’t swear to it, but I don’t think other people are going to disagree with me. If there’s a chance, even if it’s just in the ramblings of a mad woman, then we’re going to take it. In case you hadn’t noticed, the world’s turned upside down. If Morgana thinks upside down in the first place then perhaps she’s the best person to follow.”

“That logic is ridiculous,” Arthur commented. “I’m not going to let you.”

“Remember when we were at university?” Lancelot asked. Merlin blinked, but apparently he was the only person who didn’t get the reference, because Arthur was colouring.

“You cheated.”

“I don’t think rules really apply here,” Lancelot said, smirking. “I beat you then, I’ll beat you now. There’s no question of you ‘letting’ me do anything. Don’t get me wrong, Arthur, I would die for you, but I’m not going to let you make a stupid decision because that scares you. It’s not just you who’s involved, it’s all of us, and we all need to fight.”

“I can’t…”

“We can.”

“Arthur,” Merlin said, pitching his voice low. His eyes locked with Arthur’s and he tried to convey words without words. Earlier Arthur had trusted him, he needed to trust him here as well.

“It’s suicide.”

“Let’s hope not,” Lancelot said, standing up. “I’ll go talk to people.”

“Don’t…”

“I’m not going to order them to do anything.”

*

Chapter 10: A Shattered Skyline