STUCK IN THE MIDDLE
Author: MBFC
Summary: What happens when a girl is put in between Galahad and Gawain. (Not a new story, a re-write)
Rating: T
Pairing(s): GawainOCGalahad, TristanOC.
Feedback: Desired.
Characters: The Characters of the King Arthur movie.
Betas: My beta abandoned me so I am looking for a new one.
Notes: Characters might act a little out of character. It is not supposed to be a realistic picture of the dark ages nor of the King Arthur movie. It is just a plotbunny which stuck with me and I decided to have a little fun with the bunny. Lancelot and Tristan did not die during the battle of Badon Hill. Guinevere is not the Guinevere of the movies, she is not a warrior.
Disclaimer: Don't own the King Arthur characters, movies or legends. I am not making any money by writing.
Dedicated to: Brandy for it was all her fault for making me think of a Galahad and Gawain sandwich.
"Thoughts"/ "Speech"
CHAPTER ONE
It was several weeks after the battle of Badon Hill and Arthur did not wish to get married or crowned without his all of his remaining knights at his side. During the battle both Lancelot and Tristan had been severely injured. So at this moment everyone at the fortress, including the Woads, where busy to get the two knights back onto their feet.
Lancelot by pure dumb luck, although he would never admit to that, had turned a moment before the arrow had lodged itself into his body. This caused the arrow to hit him just below the shoulder joint, missing major organs, though it had still caused severe damage to the shoulder. Lancelot would never be able to raise his arm higher than his head. Luckily he was ambidextrous so he would still be able to wield a sword in the battlefield.
Tristan however was an entire different story; the knight had been saved from a certain death by Arthur himself. Obviously Tristan had been very angry and still resented Arthur very much from keeping him from an honorable death on the battlefield. Ever since regaining consciousness he had been in a sour mood, for he had realized that he would not be able to fight on the battlefield ever again. All present on the day he had been injured would have thought that the jab in his chest would cause him the most trouble but that had only been a minor injury compared to the deep slash on his leg.
Today was Gawain's and Galahad's duty to stay with the wounded knights and they where currently standing in the hallway of the healing house drawing straws. To Galahad's delight Gawain pulled the shortest straw and he would have to tend to Tristan.
"This is unfair Galahad. I have been taking care of that bloody stubborn scout since he got injured in the first place. Let me see those straws." Gawain complained after getting Tristan for the twentieth time before realizing that Galahad had tampered with the straws.
"There is nothing wrong with these straws." The curly haired knight however kept his distance from the other knight.
"Boys there is no point in arguing over it." Raicheal warned as she passed her two friends.
"When are you ever going to realize that we aren't boys anymore, Rai?" The blond knight looked at the passing red head.
"When you two stop acting like little boys." Raicheal answered without looking at them. "Which will probably be never since boys will always be boys."
Both Galahad and Gawain had become close friends with Raicheal since they arrived at the fortress. At first they had believed the little red head to have been a boy since she was always wearing breeches. It took them three more years before they would find out that their best friend Rai was a girl. When Bors had told them they did not wanted to believe him at first, only when they had questioned Dagonet did they realized that Rai was a girl and she was ignored for over a month.
Raicheal had never understood what the problem was with her two friends during that month; she had always looked for them and the two knights would take off in another direction whenever they saw her. Much to the amusement of Bors and the other knights.
After a month Gawain was the first one to look for Rai again, although he liked playing with Galahad, he missed his friend. Rai was always fun to be with and she never lost her temper like Galahad did. Galahad eventually turned around but not without a lot of pushing from Gawain and some stomping on Galahad's side.
"So are you boys ready to face another day in the presence of Curls and I-wish-I-was-dead?" Raicheal's brown eyes twinkled with amusement.
"No! Why do we have to do this again?" Galahad complained.
"Because I told you so and you should always listen to a woman." Raicheal tried to look stern at the pair of miserable looking knights.
"You are not a woman." Galahad mentioned before turning red and stuttering. "Of course you are b..but…"
"But what Galahad?" Gawain questioned the young knight.
Raicheal shrugged her shoulders before opening the wooden door and entering the room with fresh linen. Somewhere during the last year Galahad and Gawain had taken a fancy on Raicheal but the woman was completely oblivious to it.
"Thas was really smooth Galahad, really smooth." Gawain whispered as he followed Raicheal into the room. Somehow flirting with Raicheal was more difficult than flirting with the wenches at the bar.
Galahad let out a small sigh before stepping into the room only to bump into Gawain who was moving away from Tristan's bed.
"Watch where you are going!" Galahad gave the bigger knight a shove out of his way.
"You walked into me." Gawain glared at Galahad.
"Galahad would you bring this to Lancelot and tell him to wash himself." Raicheal handed Galahad a towel and a bowl of fresh water.
"But I like it better if you wash me Raicheal." Lancelot's voices sounded sultry from behind the curtains that separated the rooms.
"I am sure you do but what if I prefer not to wash you?" Raicheal had been used to Lancelot's flirting. She would be the first to admit that Lancelot was handsome yet she also knew he would not be right for her. His affairs never lasted longer than a night and Raicheal sought something deeper than that.
"How can you not like me? I mean look at me." The dark knights sounded hurt.
"Galahad please take a look at Lancelot and tell me why I would like to wash him?" Raicheal had been surrounded by men her entire life. She had no sisters and her mother had died giving birth to her so she had been raised by her father, grandfather and her ten brothers.
"Not for all the coins in the world." Galahad returned from behind the curtain where he had been tending to Lancelot.
"Then get me when he's finished washing and please Lancelot leave the bandage on! It will only cause you more trouble when you take them off." Raicheal turned serious again; after all she was a healer.
As she gave Gawain a bowl with fresh water and a towel for Tristan he made no movement to go behind the curtain.
"What's wrong?" Raicheal asked softly, even though she was sure Tristan heard every word of it.
"What's wrong?" Gawain snapped. "He growled at me, and trust me, my dear friend, that's not a good sign. I feel like a prey of his." Gawain had realized early one that Tristan just wanted to be left alone so that he could die. He had viewed his loss to the Saxon as a failure. That he had crawled away… Raicheal shook her head. He wasn't taking it very well.
"Sir Tristan I just had about enough of you behavior! If I want to do my job correctly I need Gawain to help me. So you can either help us or at the least leave him alone." Raicheal's raspy voice had doubled its volume but Tristan didn't even blink.
"Why do I have to go through this every time? Gods! You would think that after three weeks he would know I won't let him just lie there and rot," Raicheal sighed to Gawain.
"Raicheal?" Arthur had come to visit both his knights together with Guinevere.
"You let him help you and you hit him when he's growling at you." Raicheal pointed towards the two reluctant knights.
"But he'll hit me back there is nothing wrong with his arms." Gawain tried to protest.
"He should hit you back, because you're being an idiot." Raicheal couldn't help but notice the small twinkle in Tristan's eye. That's new, but a good sign, she thought delightedly.
"Arthur, Guinevere." Raicheal nodded as she saw the pair standing in the doorway. "We were wondering whether we could talk with Lancelot and Tristan." Arthur walked into the middle of the room, followed by Guinevere.
"You will have to wait for Tristan. He's being as stubborn as he is every day so he isn't finished yet. Let me check on Lancelot for you for he should be about ready." Raicheal moved towards the curtain that hid Lancelot from sight.
"So Galahad do I want to look at Lancelot?" Raicheal tried to keep the laughter out of her voice which became harder when she saw the look on Arthur's face.
"No you don't. Honestly nothing special here." Galahad's head came out from between the curtains with a mischievous grin on his face.
"Nothing special. Come here and I'll show you something special." Lancelot muttered under his breath as he threw the towel over Galahad's head.
"I think he's done, I can change that bandage later." Raicheal pulled the towel from Galahad's head, opened the curtains and motioned for Arthur and Guinevere to come over.
"Raicheal do you think these two are fit enough to be moved?" Arthur looked hopeful at Raicheal, and she knew he was referring at his upcoming wedding.
"This one can walk, I'm sure of it; he's just likes being pampered by Galahad." This earned her two objections from the men. "That one, even if he could walk, you'll probably have to tie him to his horse to get him anywhere."
"Think you could arrange that for this Saturday?" If Arthur beamed anymore, Raicheal was sure he would burst into a flame.
"Sure, I'll kick Lancelot out of his bed. I would however need some assistance with Tristan." Raicheal was thinking in the line of a dozen strong men.
"So you like it rough." Lancelot was backing to his teasing again.
"That's it, get out of the bed." Raicheal turned towards Lancelot with such ferocity he shrunk back into his pillow.
"No! I was just joking," Lancelot said with a small voice holding up his hands before him, obviously not liking the idea of having to actually move himself.
"What is this? The brave Sir Lancelot? Afraid of a woman?" Guinevere seemed to be impressed by Raicheal's performance.
"You haven't spent three weeks with her," Lancelot said in defense of his rather vast ego.
"Well Gawain and Galahad, I'm told, have known her for fifteen years." Guinevere continued.
"She's nice to them." Lancelot knew he was losing this one, so he just gave up.
"What is it you wanted to talk about?" Lancelot changed the subject abruptly.
"Since we're to be wed and you are going to be my witness in this, we thought it would only be fair if you took Guinevere's witness to our wedding." Arthur and Guinevere beamed at each other.
"It's a woman, right?" Lancelot wasn't sure what Woad traditions were.
"Yes, she is. She happens to one of Merlin's own guards." Guinevere laughed at Lancelot's expression.
"What does she look like?" Lancelot wasn't sure he wanted to take some brutish looking woman to Arthur's wedding; it would damage his reputation.
"Galahad, could you ask the guard outside to bring Seath in here?" Guinevere had turned towards Galahad who was gazing at Raicheal.
"Bring what in?" Galahad blinked a couple of times, going back to reality.
"Her name is Seath. Just ask the guard to bring her here." Guinevere sounded frustrated by Galahad's lack of attention.
Galahad looked at Arthur and wondered why he was being ordered around by Arthur's soon to be wife. Arthur nodded to him to do what Guinevere had asked, Galahad decided to stomp out of the room showing that he didn't need to do what they told him.
"He's done." Gawain came from behind the curtain and walked towards Raicheal who was preparing some herbs for Tristan's leg.
"Did he growl at you?" Raicheal asked.
"Yes." Gawain answered knowing where this conversation would lead.
"Did you hit him?" Raicheal gathered her stuff and walked over to Tristan's bed.
"Yes." Gawain followed.
"Did you hit him back?" Raicheal turned to Tristan.
"What do you think?" Tristan said, voice monotone but slightly irritated, hoping the stupid woman would leave him alone. That's all he wanted.
"Gawain where did he hit you?" Raicheal proceeded to put her herbs on the table next to the bed.
"On my head and he only got that because he made it look like he was going to say something." Gawain pointed at a spot on the top of his head.
"Though," he added with an afterthought, "I shouldn't have fallen for that."
Raicheal reached for Gawain's head, who was so taken by surprise, that he let it happen, and planted a little kiss on Gawain's bushy head.
"There all better, now go and play nicely with Galahad." Raicheal pushed him through the curtains.
"Glad to see you're still able to be amused." Raicheal had observed the little smile that had very shortly graced Tristan's face. She quickly rebounded Tristan's leg and moved to look at his other wounds, which where healing nicely.
"Arthur, I'm finished with Tristan," Raicheal said as she pulled the curtains back.
Raicheal almost dropped the dirty bandages on the ground when she found herself faced with a person covered in blood. She got herself together and quickly glanced over the person wondering whether they needed any kind of aid from her, but from the looks of it they didn't.
"Seath, you could at the least have cleaned yourself up." Guinevere said disdained as she observed her witness, who just shrugged her shoulders in return.
"Lancelot this is Seath. She's going to be my witness. Seath this is Lancelot and he's Arthur's witness. We would like it very much if the two of you would attend our wedding together." Guinevere introduced the two strangers to each other.
Lancelot looked at the person standing at the edge of his bed. She was wearing a brownish coat, not much different from Tristan's. It was longer and it flared more at the bottom, the sleeves come just below her elbows. Her underarms where covered with white fabric and over them where black gloves with leather cords around the writs. Around her waist it looked like there were several strapping keeping the coat closed. She wore boots also decorated with strapping and buckles. The only decoration elsewhere was on her shoulders, which were decorated with small metal bits. Lancelot judge that she couldn't be a day older than sixteen, she was about five feet. He couldn't make her face out because the long black hair had fallen to cover up the face. As Lancelot took Seath in she didn't make any movement, nor did she appeared to enjoy being there.
"Is that all?" Seath suddenly said.
"So you will go to the wedding with him." It wasn't even a question, really. Guinevere looked at her; Seath just shrugged her shoulders again.
"She is going to wear a dress?" Lancelot wasn't planning on taking that girl with him if she dressed like that, blood and all.
"Yes she is going to wear a dress. All the women present will wear a dress," Guinevere stated.
Lancelot could feel Seath glare at him for a moment she then turned a started to walk out of the room. She stopped short a few feet of the door and turned her attention to Tristan, who was staring at the ceiling which he had been doing for all those weeks.
Feeling that someone was watching him, he turned his gaze to the doorway, and upon doing so, found a very familiar set of eyes gaze at him. He had memorized those eyes, the left eye green and right eye blue, those eyes had starred at him several times during Woad attacks. Although he had never seen them so close, he moved to sit in an upright position to get a better look but those eyes decided to leave.