TITLE: The Fall of Camelot
PART TWO


"Is he gone?" Seth barged into the pool house as Kirsten came out of her reverie.

"Yes."

He nodded, "Good," and looked around as if trying to assure himself that Ryan was, in fact, gone.

She sighed. "Look, Seth, I know you're upset..."

"Well why shouldn't I be? I can't even believe he-he... went there, Mom! It's so wrong."

She closed her eyes. "I know that it's complicated-"

"Understatement of the century," he huffed, folding his arms and plopping down in one of the rattan chairs, his lanky legs stretched out in front of him. "You're not the least bit creeped out by this?"

"It's unusual."

Seth raised his eyebrows at that. "Unusual? That's it? The word 'incest' ring a bell to anyone else around here?"

"Ryan's not my son," she felt the need to remind him. There was no blood tying the two of them together, no shared genetic material.

"So that makes it okay, then."

Kirsten closed her eyes, wishing she was alone. Her thoughts were tumultuous enough; she didn't need Seth haranguing her and tripping her up. "I never said that."

"Did you know how he felt before this?"

She shook her head. "I found out this morning."

"So there was never any indication of it that you picked up on before this?"

Kirsten paused, suddenly uncertain of how to answer her son. Did she know about Ryan's feelings before he verbalized them?

"'Tis the season to be Jewish, fa la-la-la-la, la-la la la," Seth sang, hanging ornaments on the freshly-cut tree.

Kirsten smirked. "Interesting lyrics this year, sweetie," she teased, and Ryan grinned at her from the mantle, where he was stringing garland.

"Been running a little dry on fresh new songs to spin into Chrismukkah carols," her son explained.

They all glanced up as a new voice trailed back into the room, namely Sandy's. "Well they're just gonna have to work with us here. I know it's the holidays, but it's extremely important that we close this deal."

Kirsten watched as her husband leaned down to grab his briefcase, not throwing so much as a glance in their direction before opening the front door.

"Yeah, I'm on my way out now. Can you please schedule a conference call with them for," he glanced at his watch, "a half-hour from now?" He started out the door. "Yeah, I'm-"

The door closed in his wake, his voice trailing off as he headed for the car. Kirsten threw up her hands in a gesture of 'What the...' while Ryan and Seth looked at one another. Sighing, Kirsten sat down hard on the coffee table, staring down at the platinum Star of David ornament in her hands, half-wanting to chuck it into the fireplace.

She looked up at Ryan, who seemed to understand the look on her face without a word. He turned to Seth. "Hey, I think we're missing a couple boxes of ornaments. And the tree-topper."

Seth glanced around, frowning. "You are absolutely right, my friend." Then he glanced to his mother. "They still downstairs?"

Kirsten nodded. "Yes." And as he headed off, she called after him, "Thanks, sweetie!" Then she turned to the only companion left in the room, her eyes showing their gratitude. "Thank you."

Ryan nodded, crouching beside her. "Y'alright?"

She sighed once more. "I dunno. It just..." She threw a glance toward the front door, as if Sandy were about to walk through it again. Then she turned back to Ryan. "It just seems like it never stops."

He smiled sympathetically. "Well... you've still got us."

She chuckled, somewhat mirthlessly. "Yeah, when Seth's not spending his every waking moment with Summer or Captain Oats, or-"

"Well you've still got me," he interjected with a soft smile, patting her knee. "I'm not goin' anywhere."

Kirsten smiled, touched by his loyalty, and for a moment they just looked at one another. She attempted to discern the look in his eyes - it was soft, almost serene. She'd been seeing it on him more and more since she'd been home from Suriak.

As if realizing he was staring, Ryan cleared his throat and ducked his gaze, rising to his feet and walking to the tree. "Since you could use a little cheering up... here."

He returned to her with a slim, wrapped package he'd retrieved from under the tree. She smirked. "Ryan..."

"I know it's early, but I want you to have it."

Curiosity having gotten the better of her, she tore open the package to find a framed picture of the two of them - it had obviously been taken at the Halloween party on the pier just two months prior, seemingly from their entrance. The two of them were arm-in-arm, her in her deep green gown and golden crown, and Ryan in his suit of armor. She smiled up at him, and he shrugged, a sheepish grin on his face.

"It's just a little something for a queen, from her knight."

"Wow. This is wonderful, Ryan, I don't know what to say." She rose to her feet, wrapping her arms around his neck and smiling with eyes closed. She felt him hesitate a moment before he held her in return, rubbing her back gently. "Thank you."

His smile was evident in his voice as he replied softly, "You're welcome," and pulled back.

Her eyes searched his another moment, her mouth opening to ask him a question - what, she wasn't sure; and it was soon forgotten as a crash from the basement startled them.

"Seth?" she called.

"Uhh... quick question!" her son called back. "How important is this box marked 'fine china'?"

Kirsten glanced to Ryan in alarm and he patted her shoulders, chuckling, "I got it," before he headed for the basement to help his friend.

She watched him go for a moment, hoping the damage to their fine china wasn't too severe, as she turned back to Ryan's gift. She smiled at the ornate carvings on the frame, turning it over in her hand. That was when she found the engraving on the back, in the form of a poem.

"Then in the boyhood of the year,
Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere
Rode thro' the coverts of the deer
With blissful treble ringing clear."

She gasped, recognizing the verse immediately and thinking back to his comment that night about being her Lancelot; how she'd dismissed the remark at the time and chalked it up to his unfamiliarity with the tale. Now it seemed Ryan knew the story even when he made the reference.

He had known all along that Lancelot had been infatuated with Guinevere; so what did the gift mean? It was just a photo, certainly. Just a lovely framed photograph from a Halloween party. But paired with the verse from Tennyson's poem about the legendary lovers, Kirsten wasn't sure what to make of it.

"Mom."

"What?"

Seth raised his eyebrows at her, shaking his head slightly. "Did you have any idea what was going on before this morning?"

"No," she lied, shaking her head. "No, I really didn't."

He huffed, lips pressed tightly together as he shook his ducked head, admitting softly, "I hate to say it, but I kinda saw this coming."

That got Kirsten's attention. She raised her eyes to her son, watching him watch the floor. "What?"

"Ryan. I kinda saw it coming a mile away, and just... hoped it wasn't what I thought it was."

"What do you mean?"

"I dunno, he just..." Seth shrugged. "He worshiped the ground you walked on. If me or dad were ever mad at you, he found a way to stick up for you and take your side. I mean at first, I just thought it was because you let him stay with us and you got him outta juvy, but... it just kinda kept going after that first year. Then there was the whole thing with Lindsay, and... that was weird enough."

Kirsten nodded, remembering quite well the resemblance between herself and her half-sister, who Ryan happened to be dating at the time. How she'd thought it odd that he kept wanting to be with Lindsay even after he'd acknowledged the uncanny resemblance. She also remembered the odd, misplaced traces of jealousy she'd felt at the time, which she later buried and passed off as irrational.

"And then when you went away, he was just a totally different guy."

At that, Kirsten lifted her eyes. "How so?"

"He was way more broody than usual. I thought maybe he was gonna start punching people again. But then you came back, and he was fine. He's just... always been really different with you." Seth frowned. "Never seen him act the way he does around you with anyone else. Not even Marissa."

She processed that silently for a moment.

"I just always hoped it was some sort of maternal thing, and..." he made a face. "Not what it actually is."

"I guess you can't control your feelings, however twisted and convoluted they may be," she defended.

"No, but you can control your actions. He didn't have to tell you."

Kirsten nodded. "You didn't have to eavesdrop, either, but you did."

He raised his eyebrows. "And man, I wish I hadn't." Rising to his feet, he met her eyes, almost pleadingly. "Just... please tell me that nothing happened between you guys, that he didn't try anything with you. Because I've only punched somebody once in my life and wasn't real great at it, so I don't want to have to do it again."

She shook her head. "Nothing ever happened," she assured him.

And to his credit, Ryan never did make any sort of advance. But to say nothing had ever happened was perhaps a slight bending of the truth.

"Kirsten?" Ryan's voice followed her out onto the patio, followed by the sound of the door sliding open as he stepped outside.

"Up here," she called back from the rooftop awning, reaching for another of Seth's plastic reindeer and tossing it on the lawn.

"What are you doing?"

She leaned over slightly as he stepped out from under the awning, shielding his eyes from the sun to look up at her. "I wanted Sandy to take these down today, but he got called into work early, so I figured I'd just do it myself."

"Well why didn't you come and get me? I would have done it for you."

She waved away the offer and grabbed a strand of Christmas lights, pulling it down and Ryan caught it. He began to wind it around his arm as she told him, "I appreciate your continued acts of chivalry, my dear knight, but sometimes a Queen can look out for herself."

"I know, but... it's kinda dangerous up there."

Her foot slid on one of the shingles but she caught herself, nodding afterward. "I know, but I'm being cautious."

"Still, I wish you'd let me help you."

Kirsten smirked, rolling her eyes. "You're not gonna let up, are you?"

"Maybe if you come down from there, I'll consider it," he teased in return.

"Alright, fine fine," she sighed, throwing the second-to-last reindeer off the roof before moving toward the ladder.

On her way down with Ryan holding the ladder, she reached out to grab the last strand of lights. "Just one more thing of lights, and then I'll-"

But the way in which she leaned to the side to grab them sent her tumbling from the ladder still several feet off the ground. Thankfully, Ryan had been quick enough to catch her, both of them landing hard on the lawn while the ladder fell back and crashed onto the concrete.

Kirsten groaned, her face buried in Ryan's chest as aches and tremors ran through her bones. "God."

Ryan lifted his head, grunting in pain, "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, thanks to you." She chuckled breathlessly, heart still going a mile a minute. "You're my hero."

Ryan chuckled airily, sounding as though he had the wind knocked out of him a bit. "At your service, my queen."

Together they laughed at the predicament and she rolled off him, her ankle throbbing a bit as she did so. "Ow..."

"What? What is it?" He sat up quickly, reaching for her.

She shook her head. "It's just my ankle. What about you?" She eyed him. "You could've cracked a rib doing that."

"Better me than you," he explained, and pressed his left hand against his rib cage. "I think I'm fine."

"You're not, you're bleeding," she told him, spotting the gash on his arm.

"Huh." He glanced down at the wound, almost curiously. "How 'bout that. Didn't even feel it."

They looked around for the source, noting that one of the pointed horns on Seth's plastic reindeer was the most likely culprit. "Figures," Ryan chuckled.

Kirsten reached for his hand, the two of them getting up slowly, still aching from the fall. "Come on, I've got some supplies in the bathroom."

She brought him to the master bedroom and had him sit on the silk bench at the foot of the bed while she fetched the first-aid kit from the bathroom. When she returned, it was with antiseptic, cotton, and gauze; she knelt in front of him and uncapped the antiseptic. "You know the drill," she murmured, and he nodded.

Gently, she dabbed some antiseptic on the cut, flicking her eyes up to his whenever he would hiss in pain or shift uncomfortably. "Almost done," she murmured, after several moments of silence.

Ryan just nodded, watching her work and handing her the gauze wrap when she requested it. The cut was long, but luckily not terribly deep. Carefully, she wrapped that section of his forearm several times over.

"Good thing I stocked up on this a couple years ago," she commented. Lifting her eyes to his, she gave him a tiny smirk. "I figured with a fighter in the house, this stuff might be needed."

He chuckled. "Nah, I listened when you asked me to stop punching people." Off her look, he shrugged and added sheepishly, "Except when someone deserved it."

"Right," she chuckled. After securing the gauze in place, she gave his arm a pat and leaned back, rising to her feet. "All set."

"Thanks, Kirsten."

She reached down a hand to help him up and he took it, though she underestimated his weight. He ended up tugging her down and once again they found themselves on their backs, though this time her bed was their net rather than the grass.

"Sorry," she chuckled again, embarrassed at herself.

"No, it's me," he told her. "I'm not exactly a ballerina."

She smiled, propping herself up and tucking her hair behind her ear, and for a moment everything stopped. Ryan was beneath her, with a hand on her waist to brace her, their eyes locked on one another. She was uncertain how long they stayed there like that, staring at one another while sprawled across her bed, though it felt like an eternity and an instant at the same time.

Again, she tried to discern the look in his eyes. Just like when he gave her that photograph, his eyes were soft as he looked at her, his expression calm and serene. This time, she noted that his eyes bounced down to her lips and then back up again. When her stomach somersaulted, she wasn't sure whether to enjoy or fight the feeling.

"I, um..." Her voice escaped in little more than a whisper, common sense starting to catch up with her. She pushed herself off of him, off of the bed, and paced back and forth at the end of it. "I-I should go finish up getting that stuff off the roof."

Ryan scrambled to his feet, then, sounding just as nervous as she felt. "No no, you stay. I'll go get it. I think there's just one reindeer left anyway."

"Right, okay."

He brushed past her, heading out the French doors toward the pool area, and Kirsten instinctively reached out, "Ryan..." her fingers just barely brushing his hand.

He turned just past the threshold and looked at her expectantly, but she realized suddenly that she didn't know what to say. But his expression of gentle understanding said everything she didn't know how to put words to, so she just nodded and said, "Thanks."

And Ryan nodded back, his blue eyes loaded with a myriad feelings she wasn't sure either of them were ready to deal with as he replied, "You're welcome," and turned away without another word.


TBC