After the death of King Arthur Pendragon, and the land of Albion was united, our beloved characters lived out their lives before they were scattered throughout time and space, their memories wiped. The thing that connected them? At one point or another, all of them had encountered the Doctor, directly or indirectly. Each of them had met the same man with different faces that would help unite them all back together again. Once they are united, what then?
Then the Once And Future King will rise once more.
Chapter 1
Planet: Midnight
Time: 27th Century
Doctor: 10th Incarnation
Jethro Cane kept having strange dreams. Every night for the past couple weeks he would dream of a war, a woman, and a blonde man. The woman was always in black. She had black hair and evil green eyes that sometimes flashed gold. The man looked strangely familiar, even though Jethro had never seen him before. He always carried a look of determination in his bright blue eyes. The strangest part about the man was that he always wore chain-mail, sometimes even a large billowing red cloak with a golden dragon on one side. The blonde always fought with a sword in hand, followed by many other seemingly familiar faces. They fought against people on the side of the evil looking woman.
Then the man would almost die.
Jethro would dream he picked up the body, and took it to a forest. There, the man regained consciousness. Jethro would be crying. He was about to reveal a secret, he knew that's what was happening next, when the dream would stop. It always stopped in the same place.
Sometimes, though, after the dream had ended, Jethro would hear a quiet, urging voice repeat the same thing over and over again.
Emrys. Remember, Emrys. Remember who you are.
Then he'd wake up.
"Hurry, Jethro! We don't want to be late!" Jethro's mother, Val Cane calls to her son. Jethro sighs and slowly heads outside the room to meet his parents. They were currently on vacation on the planet Midnight, and were headed to the Crusader 50 to visit the Sapphire Waterfall.
They only had to walk a short distance, and were five minutes early, so Jethro didn't understand what his mother was making such a big deal out of.
He got on, and picked a seat towards the back, away from his parents.
"Now don't be silly, come and sit with us. Look! We get slippers!" His mother urges him.
"Jethro, do as your mother says." Biff Cane tells his son.
"I'm sitting here." He argues.
"Oh, he's ashamed of us. But he doesn't mind us paying, does he?" Jethro's father says.
"Don't start, you two. Should I save the juicepack or have it now? Look, it's peach and clementine!" Val says. Jethro ignores his parents. He hardly pays attention when the hostess starts talking.
"Ladies and gentlemen and variations thereupon, welcome on board the Crusader Fifty, if you could fasten your seatbelts, we'll be leaving any moment. Doors!" She says to all the passengers. The entrance door closes. "Shields down!" Thunk! Metal shutters descend over all the windows, blocking all view of the outside.
"I'm afraid the view is shielded until we reach the Waterfall Palace - as you know, the planet Midnight orbits an X-tonic star, which has fused the planet's surface into solid diamonds. Can't risk a little sunburn! And a reminder that Midnight has no air, so please don't touch the exterior door seals. The fire exit is at the rear, though, should we ever need to use it... You first. Now I'll hand you over to Driver Joe..." The hostess continues before a voice starts to speak over the intercom.
"Driver Joe at the wheel, hello! There's been a diamondfall at the Winter Witch Canyon, so we'll be taking a slight detour, as you'll see on the map." Jethro looks up to see a map of the Crusader, its original path, and its new path. He resumes his previous position as the driver starts to speak again.
"The journey covers 500 kliks to the Multifaceted Coast, duration is estimated at four hours. Thank you for travelling with us, and as they used to say in the olden days... Wagons roll!" There was a rumble, then a slight jolt forward as they started moving.
"For your entertainment, we have the Music Channel playing retrovids of Earth Classics," the hostess pauses as screens come down. "Also, we have the latest Artistic Installations from Ludovic Klein," projections of shapes and blobs show on the walls, dancing on the faces of the passengers. "Plus, for the youngsters, a rare treat from the Animation Archives," She pulls down a big white screen from the roof of the Crusader in front of the crew cabin door. Then projected on it was cartoons from the 1940's. "Four hours of funtime! Enjoy!" At that, the hostess walks to the back.
Give me a break. Jethro thinks as he puts in his earbuds. Less than a minute later, he can hear a strange buzzing, then all the "entertainment" shuts off. He takes out his earbuds to figure out what's happening.
"Well that's a mercy!" An older man, Professor Hobbes says, followed by the hostess running forward.
"I do apologize, ladies and gentlemen and variations thereupon. We seem to have a failure of the Entertainment System." She says rather flustered. What a pity. Jethro thinks.
"But what do we do?!" His mother exclaims.
"We've got four hours of this! Four hours of just sitting here!" His father exclaims. Jethro starts to put his headphones back in when a rather over-excited man in the front starts to talk.
"Tell you what! We'll have to talk to each other instead! How about that, then? Eh?" The Doctor says with a smile.
Great. Just great.
98 Kilks later
"So Biff said, 'I'm going swimming.'" Val Cane says to those around her. The Doctor included, but Jethro, not. He still sits a bit apart from everyone else, bored out of his mind, forced to listen to the conversation since his game player died.
"Oh, I was all ready, trunks and everything! Nose plug!" Jethro's father says, taking over the story from his wife.
"He had this little nose plug, you should've seen him." Back and fourth it went.
"So I went marching up to the lifeguard, and he was a Shamboni, you know, those big foreheads?"
"Great big forehead!"
"And I said, 'where's the pool?' And he said, the pool... is abstract!" Both Val and Biff Cane said this last part together, and since it wasn't the first time he'd heard the story, Jethro mouthed the words with a even more bored expression. As if he could get any more bored. All the others listening to the story were laughing.
"It wasn't a real pool!" Jethro's mother exclaims with a laugh.
"It was a concept!" Biff said, grinning from ear to ear.
"It wasn't real!" Val says.
"And you had a nose plug!" The Doctor says happily. Jethro's father mimics the nose plug.
"I was like this!" Everyone was laughing their heads off, even the hostess was enjoying it a little. Jethro just sunk into the seat with embarrassment.
About 225 Kilks later
Just when Jethro thought this trip couldn't get any worse, the Doctor walks over and sits by him.
"Everyone else has talked to at least one other person on the Crusader. Everyone but you, Jethro. Mind if I join you?" The Doctor asks, even though he's already sitting down. Jethro just gives a slight nod and tilts his head back. Then the unexpected happened. Jethro knew that the Doctor would try to make conversation with him, but what he said jarred the teenager.
"There's something bothering you, isn't there? Something you haven't quite figured out, and haven't told anyone."
"How do you know?" Jethro asks, shocked. Was it really that obvious?
"I've lived a long life. I can tell when there's something bothering someone." The Doctor answers. "What is it?" Jethro didn't know if he should trust this man he just met.
"Trust me. I won't tell anyone if that's what you're worried about." Jethro could see that this man was being sincere. He sighs.
"I've...been having dreams lately. Strange dreams. The same every night for the last couple weeks." Jethro says slowly.
"And what happened in these dreams?" The Doctor asks.
"A war. Always a war. The people in the war looked so familiar, though I've never seen them before. One was a blonde man in chain-mail with a sword. He looked like he could be a king. The other was a quite evil looking woman. She was always in black, and had long black hair. The worst part about her was her eyes. They were a pale green, but sometimes flashed gold. Whenever they turned gold, something bad would happen." Jethro tells the Time Lord.
"There's something else, isn't there?" The Doctor answers to Jethro's story.
"Yes." Jethro answers hesitantly. "Sometimes, after the dream would end, I would hear a voice that also seemed familiar. It was always urgent, and always repeating." The Doctor had a slightly worried look on his face.
"Jethro, what did the voice say?"
"'Emrys. Remember, Emrys. Remember who you are.' What does it mean, remember who I am? I'm-I'm Jethro Cane. Always have been. My name's not Emrys." Deep down inside, Jethro feels a tug on his heart, like he knows Emrys is really his name.
"I don't know, but I'll try to help you figure it out." The Doctor says, confident he will figure out Jethro's dreams.
That doesn't mean he knows how long it will take.
A/N: I hope you enjoy Chapter 1 of my new story! Please read and review!
P.S. Disclaimer: I do NOT own Doctor Who, and parts of the dialogue were taken from the episode's script I found online.
P.P.S. Yes, I know that not all Merlin actors have been in an episode of Doctor Who, so those characters/plots will be my own. But I'd be ecstatic if you would like to give me any ideas for those who were never in it. (Planet, time, adventure, name, etc.) Enjoy!