A/N: I own neither Merlin or the stories references made to. Enjoy! + Review! Thank you, buttercups :)

Troubled Minds.

1. Back in time.

"I hate you all!" the girl slammed the door shut and fell dramatically on the floor, crying. Of course they wouldn't understand, why had she even bothered to share her pain with them? Dobby was dead! Sure, he was fictional, but still! That didn't mean the damage was not real.

Tears ran down her cheeks as she crawled back to her bed and under the covers for comfort. She took a deep breath and took the book in her hands again. God knows how many times it had been read, but that part always got to her. Like the deaths of other characters deemed fictional.

"Merlin?" There was a knock on the door."Open up, please!" The brunette didn't react, hugging the book close."There's a delivery for you!"

Merlin wiped away her tears and sniffed sadly. Without bothering to make herself presentable, she wrapped the blanket around her and opened the door. Her mother scrunched her nose at the way she looked, face red and hair messy, but let her through. The teenager moved slowly as a snail to the hallway, where she wordlessly signed the paper the delivery boy gave her.

"I'm sorry, but you have to prove your ID," the young man said, before handing the parcel. Merlin, as if expecting it, pulled her passport from a nearby drawer and let him admire the god-awful photo of hers. Satisfied, the pimple-faced boy handed her a small parcel. The girl took it, cursing, because from the looks of it, the post service had not been too careful with it.

"Thanks," she muttered, before turning around and moving at a turtle's speed back to her room, afraid the blanket would fall and she would be in her plain pyjamas in front of a stranger.

"Nice to meet you Merlin!" the delivery guy called, before closing the door and Merlin groaned knowing if she were to check her Facebook later, she would have a new friend request. That much for being a complete shut-in and not meeting people in the outernet.

Back in bed, she finally tore up the brown paper. In the parcel, she found a silver coin she'd ordered from eBay for a ridiculous amount of money ages ago, but that only made her excitement grow. She grabbed a magnifier almost immediately after she had wrapped her fingers around the coin.

And she knew instantly it was not the coin she had bought. It looked similar in many aspects, but there was something different about it. Merlin recognized some of the symbols and she stood up, tears still streaming down her face, to grab a book from the shelves, except it wasn't there. In fact, there wasn't even a shelf in the first place – nor her room.

She snorted at the weirdness of her situation. She was in a strange forest, wearing her cutest pyjamas under a blanket with a Slytherin emblem, hugging close a book from one of her many favourite series, a gold coin in one and a magnifier in her other hand. It was as if the work of magic she was there, but that could not have been it, nay? She closed her eyes and pried them open again, pinched herself to get out of the dream. Nothing happened.

A rustling sound was heard and she turned her head towards the source. "Watch out!" she heard a voice yell, before seeing a young man racing towards her, and she jumped out of his way, ducking in the process. The man fell to the ground, laughing gleefully.

"Sorry!" he giggled, giving her once over."May I ask where you're from, my fair lady?" He bowed, seeing the coat of arms on the blanket, as she hugged it closer. If a relatively attractive guy appeared, you wouldn't want them to see you in your pyjamas. Especially, if they were silky and pink.

"Erm... Where am I?" she asked, ignoring the question. If this was as she had hoped, then.. Then maybe she was very far away from home, on an adventure Gandalf gave Bilbo or like Percy Jackson had had after he found out his father was Poseidon.

"A ten minutes walk from Ealdor, milady," he said. Merlin frowned. She had never heard of Ealdor before, if only in the legends she'd read during her knights in shining armour phase.

"Oh," she replied stupidly She managed to put her items in one hand without dropping the blanket and offered him her hand."I'm Merlin." The man kissed her knuckles, making her eyes go wide in surprise.

"I'm William," he grinned."You can call me Will."

"Would you mind showing me the way to.. Ealdor?" the name sounded strange on her lips, but Will paid no attention to it, agreeing to lead her to the village he had just come from. They barely talked on their way, Merlin oddly aware of his presence and kept glancing at him. He was a head taller than her, but he didn't seem the type of a bad guy you'd usually meet in a forest (not that she had been to one alone in the last few years).

When they arrived, Merlin gasped. This was not happening. This place looked ancient! She had only seen that kind of houses in films and on the Internet. If this was real, then she prayed to lords she could find a place with Internet very soon.

"That's my home," he said, guiding her to one of the houses. Merlin followed cautiously, but when a weary-looking dark-haired woman came in and scolded her son for running away without a warning.

"Who's that?" she inquired then, noticing the brunette with a blanket for the first time. Merlin smiled sheepishly, avoiding looking at her. She knew how odd she must have looked like that.

"Mother, let me introduce you to lady Merlin," he said and the woman curtsied, hearing the title. "Merlin, this is my mother Hunith."

"It's pleasant to meet you," Hunith smiled kindly and Merlin muttered a small "Likewise" unused to talking with strangers. Hunith sat her down at the table, noticing her discomfort and offered her a cup of tea.

"I've actually no idea, how I ended up here," Merlin confessed. "One moment I'm at home... and then, here." She was elated to be out of her house, but this strange place scared her.

"Well, at least you haven't left the kingdom yet," Hunith smiled encouragingly, but Merlin paled. Kingdom? There was no way. She lived in a republic – didn't she? Oh Merlin's beard, she muttered one of her favourite curse phrases (despite she herself being a girl and having no beard) from the series she was obsessed with.

"Kingdom of what?" she asked with hesitation. Hunith's eyes widened, realizing the girl might be farther from home than she had guessed. Indeed, the slowly falling blanket revealed clothes she hadn't seen in her life before.

"Why, kingdom of Camelot," she said and the teenage girl before her nearly went bonkers. Her eyes widened and unluckily for her, the moment Merlin yelled "Bollocks!" a vase broke. Merlin's slightly yellow eyes told her enough. It was time she did something about this lovely intruder.