Day 03:

Never have I ever...

…revisited the universe I created in "Just a minor change"!

A/N: You don't have to read Just a minor change to understand this story (though of course you're very welcome to have a look at it!). If you just want to read this story, accept that there's a new knight who's close to Gwaine. He's called Sir William, and he knows just a bit too much about things...

All that matters

Gwaine ran his hand down Celtus's coat and decided that, even if he'd wanted to, there would be no way to get the coat any shinier. Celtus snorted and shook his mane before making a step forward to reach the trough, nearly stepping on the knight's foot.

Sighing deeply, Gwaine stepped to the side.

"That horse really does not like you."

Gwaine turned around to see William sitting on a hay bale close to Celtus's horse stall. The young knight grinned teasingly.

"He'll get to know me soon enough, and then this horse is going to realise how..."

"... how you're the worst rider in the history of Camelot?"

Gwaine stepped out of the box and shrugged at Will's comment, grimacing.

"Oh no", Will said, "not you, too. I was hoping to have a normal conversation with you!"

"What do you mean?"

Will ran his hand through his hair in an exasperated gesture: "For the past few days, you have all been so..." He trailed off for a moment and frowned before continuing: "Leon is even more formal than usual. Percival keeps a straight face even when he's around children, and you know how he usually is around them. I haven't seen Merlin for a while and all Gaius wants to tell me is that he's out of town, gathering special herbs for him. Arthur trains us even harder than he usually does, and he's in a bad mood all the time, while the Queen won't let him out of her sight for more than a few minutes – and now you, too, behave strangely."

Gwaine opened his mouth to protest, but Will raised his hands to stop him: "Don't pretend you come here often to give special care to a horse that keeps stepping onto your feet on purpose! I know you better than that. Tell me what it is you have on your mind. Maybe I can help."

"You wouldn't understand, Will. You weren't here when it happened."

Will stopped frowning and looked down on his hands, but Gwaine was sure that for a second he saw sadness in the other man's face.

"I want to understand, Gwaine. Please tell me."

Gwaine hesitated, then shook his head decidedly: "I can't. It's too painful."

"How about something to dull the pain first?", Will asked and vaguely pointed in the direction of the town.

Gwaine's face relaxed a bit as he nodded: "You are a smart boy, Will."

Now it was the younger man's turn to grimace: "Sometimes you are just easy to predict, Gwaine...", he murmured.

Some time later, the two knights were sitting at a table in the Rising Sun, both with a mug of mead in it set before them. Gwaine drank half of his before he told Will what bothered the knights of Camelot: "Has Merlin told you about the Dorocha?"

Will shifted uneasily in his chair: "He didn't, but Gaius was more forthcoming. He also told me where they came from, and how you stopped them."

Gwaine chuckled mirthlessly: "We didn't stop them. Lancelot did."

"Sir Lancelot was a brave man."

Gwaine bowed his head: "We all thought so until..." He hesitated again before asking: "Do you know what happened after?"

Will nodded: "I believe so, although I'm not sure I understand what has happened... How can someone come back from the dead?"

Gwaine shrugged: "At the time, we didn't really care how it was possible. We should've been more careful..."

Will, who hadn't touched his beaker of mead, reached over and laid his hand on Gwaine's arm momentarily, apparently to emphasize his words: "You couldn't have known what was going to happen. If someone I lost came back..." Will closed his eyes as if to block out some bad memories, "I wouldn't think twice about how it's possible, I would just be happy to have him back."

Gwaine nodded and emptied his mug. Will removed his hand from his arm and slid his beaker over for Gwaine to drink up.

"In the end, after Gwen was banished and the King knew what'd happened... Lancelot killed himself."

Will only nodded, apparently not in the least surprised at this revelation.

Gwaine raised an eyebrow: "Gaius told you that, too? It's not officially a secret, but not many people were told the true circumstances of that night."

William smiled sadly: "I think Gaius was glad he could tell someone. Talking makes it easier to deal with. Still, I wonder how a man who was so honourable and selfless could do all these things. It's almost like he was someone else... But I still don't see what Lancelot has to do with your foul mood."

Gwaine emptied the second beaker of mead before he continued speaking.

"We're nearing Lancelot's date of death, that is why we're..."

"That's why you're different. You are grieving."

Gwaine raised his empty mug to give the barmaid a sign to refill and said: "If that's what you want to call it... Lancelot and I didn't have a lot in common. We didn't talk much."

Will's lips barely moved as he murmured, more to himself than to Gwaine: "I'm sure you were more alike than you know."

Meanwhile, Gwaine put his legs up onto one of the free chairs at their table and leaned back. He continued, staring into his beaker: "It's bad for the others. Percival especially, I think. It was Lancelot, after all, who brought him to Camelot. He wouldn't be here without him."

Will raised an eyebrow: "Then why are you drinking here with me? You should speak to Percival."

"What?"

William smiled: "If that's what was bothering you, Gwaine, that Percival is grieving for a friend none of you talk about anymore, then maybe it's not me you should be talking to, but Percival. You both knew Lancelot, after all – you should talk about him. I know man – I know we – don't like talking about feelings, but you can't keep them bottled up forever. You've all lost a friend when Lancelot died."

"You really think we still considered Lancelot our friend after he betrayed our King's trust and got Gwen banished from Camelot? You think he was still our friend after he killed himself?"

Will looked at Gwaine intently, choosing his words carefully: "Lancelot died when he sacrificed himself to heal the veil, Gwaine. What happened after – I don't think that was Lancelot. Not really. It doesn't suit him."

"How can you say 'It doesn't suit him' when you didn't even know him?"

"No", Will said quietly, "no, I did not know him. But I know you, and I'm sure you would've known if he was bad. None of you ever had any reason to distrust him."

Gwaine shook his head: "And look where that led us."

"And still you're grieving. Don't you think that means something?"

Gwaine shrugged.

Will snatched the half empty beaker from his fingers and narrowed his eyes in anger: "Gwaine, I want you to go find Percival and talk to him about all this. I can't help you figure this out – I can't tell you about..." Will forcefully pulled a loose strand of hair that wouldn't stay put behind his ear and groaned: "Please, Gwaine. Go and talk to Percival – I mean it."

Now it was Gwaine's turn to narrow his eyes as his more than slightly drunken brain tried to keep a hold of Will's words. Something about them bothered Gwaine.

Then again, many times before Will's suggestions had sounded strange, but turned out to be good in the end.

"All right", Gwaine said, and left the tavern.

Will remained seated at the table, staring thoughtfully into the mug of mead Gwaine left behind. If there'd been anyone watching him, he might have seen that the man's eyes were filled with tears for a moment – then Sir William of Camelot blinked, and the tears vanished as he drew a shuddering breath. Then he emptied the mug and called for another one he failed to touch because he was too deep in thought, miles upon miles upon miles away and in some other time.

The next morning, Gwaine woke up lying in the stables with a splitting headache. Celtus stood over him and slept. Gwaine wondered whether he'd just had luck that the stallion hadn't run him over in the night, or if maybe he had finally accepted that Gwaine was his owner.

"Morning", he heard Percival rasp from the neighbouring stall, sounding as bad as Gwaine felt.

"Morning", Gwaine groaned. Flashes of the night before came back to him, not all of them clear, but he remembered talking to Will, and seeking out Percival. He also remembered more mead, and a long talk about Lancelot that began with anger but ended with a feeling of dull sadness Gwaine could deal with much better than with the anger.

Percival had been the knight who knew Lancelot best, maybe even better than Merlin, with whom Lancelot had been particularly close did, and talking to him made Gwaine remembered what he had appreciated Lancelot for.

The two knights looked at each other, both with bloodshot, heavily bagged eyes, dishevelled clothes and stray straws of hay in their hair – looking bad, but both feeling a lot better now. They both felt relieved.

Gwaine fought to voice his thoughts and then thought better of it because he felt nauseous, and they were knights of Camelot, after all, not soppy barmaids.

It became an unspoken agreement between the two knights that, with the exception of William maybe, no one knew anything of: That every year on Lancelot's date of death, they would meet, drink and talk about their friend. They didn't leave out the bad things, they didn't pretend they never happened – they just both decided that they weren't important any more. What was important, however, was that they had lost a brave, honourable, trustworthy man. A man who had been their friend and brother in arms – and that was all that mattered to them.

.

The End