Thank you to all those who read/alerted/favored/reviewed. There was a lot more of you than I thought there would be *jumps up and down in excitement* The Doctor will be making his appearance in chapter 3. I just needed to set the stage a little more first. Please review!

"So what you are telling me is that we are in the future?" Arthur asked slowly.

"Yes, over a thousand years later than the time we live in." Merlin said with a smile, glad his master finally got it.

"So the place we are in now hasn't happened yet?"

"Not exactly," Merlin explained carefully, "In the timeline we normally move through, this hasn't happened yet, but in the timeline we are currently in our time is long since past."

Arthur threw his hands in the air in irritation. "What?"

Merlin sighed heavily. "Don't worry about it. You understand it enough for us to move on."

"So there was a sorcerer among the bandits who attacked us? That is how we ended up in the future?"

For some reason that Arthur couldn't fathom Merlin turned bright red at his words and muttered, "Something like that."

"Stop being such a girl, Merlin," Arthur said and threw his pillow at the man.

"I see our Prince is finally awake," said a voice from the door.

Both Merlin and Arthur turned to face who had spoken but it was Merlin who really reacted. "Sarah Jane!" he said, grinning from ear to ear. He leapt up and hugged her tightly. The older woman laughed in surprise.

Merlin released her and she held out a bag to him. "I brought what you asked for," she said.

"Oh, wonderful!" he said, taking the bag. He set it down on the foot of Arthur's bed and reached inside. He pulled out a strange piece of dark blue cloth. "Good. These should do very nicely," he said. He put the cloth back in the bag and picked it up again. "Now I can finally get out of these scrubs." He walked over to another door that led to a small room and went inside.

Once the door was closed Sarah Jane turned to Arthur. She held out her hand and hesitatingly he shook it. "I'm Sarah Jane Smith," she said. "It's a pleasure to meet you Arthur Pendragon."

"And you as well, I think. So you know what is going on?" Arthur asked cautiously.

"Oh yes," Sarah Jane said with a smile. "You'd be surprised how much experience I have with this sort of thing."

Arthur walked back into the room wearing something even stranger than before. "What on earth are you wearing Merlin?" Arthur asked.

"Same thing you will be soon enough," Merlin replied, throwing the bag at him. "Now get changed so we can be on our way. We already have enough people covering the cost of you being in here as it is."

Arthur stood up and went into the other room to dress. He pulled the clothes out of the bag and tried to get them on, half wishing that Merlin would come and help him.

…

Merlin had enough stress on his mind to not realize that Arthur would probably need help with the modern clothes since Arthur needed help dressing normally. "Thank you," he said, "the clothes fit perfectly."

"Your welcome," she said with another smile, "I also managed to get these for you." She handed him two thin plastic rectangles. Merlin turned them over to see pictures of himself on one and Arthur on the other. His name was listed as Emrys Ambrosius and Arthur's as Arthur Peterson. He couldn't help but chuckle at the names Sarah Jane had chosen.

"Let's just hope that you don't run into anyone who knows both Welsh and Latin or they will realize your first and last names are the same."

Merlin couldn't hide the discomfort he felt at being called Emrys. "Why couldn't you have kept my first name as Merlin."

At the very least Sarah Jane looked somewhat sympathetic. "Unfortunately Merlin is not exactly a normal name you run into. Moreover you would get some very suspicious looks when people realized that two men named Merlin and Arthur were traveling together. As you have learned, the legends about you are very widely known."

Merlin chuckled again. "Peterson, I wonder how he is going to react to that one."

"As you discovered when you first arrived, no one is going to believe that his real name is Arthur Pendragon." Merlin nodded. Sarah Jane next handed him a wallet. "This is for you as well." She said, "There should be enough money in it to get you through the week. Hopefully he will turn up by then and get you out of here."

Merlin accepted the wallet and hugged her again. "You have no idea how much I appreciate everything you have done for us."

Sarah Jane laughed. "It really isn't a problem Merlin. I enjoyed having the pleasure of meeting the pair of you. I have one last thing to give you before I go." She pulled away from him and reached into one of the large pockets in her jacket to pull out a small leather bound book. "This is a book of Arthurian legend. I thought you might enjoy reading it."

Merlin stepped back as though he thought the book might burn him. "I don't want to know about my future. I know more than I care to from the prophesies already."

Sarah Jane smiled. "I wouldn't worry too much about that. From what you have told me about your life, these legends are very far off what really happens to you and Arthur. I thought you might just get a laugh out of them."

Merlin accepted the book from her and turned to see Arthur standing behind him, dressed in his new clothes. "What are you two talking about?" he asked suspiciously.

Merlin didn't know how long he had been standing there so he decided to say, "It's nothing for you to worry about Arthur. Come, we had best be going."

Arthur followed Merlin and Sarah Jane down several flights of stairs (Neither of them thought Arthur was ready for the lift yet) and to a desk on the ground floor. Merlin signed a bunch of paperwork to sign Arthur out and then they walked out of the building into the bright afternoon sunshine.

"I can drive you down to a hotel if you want," Sarah Jane said to Merlin.

Merlin glanced at Arthur for a long moment before saying, "I think we had better walk. Don't worry, I remember where it is."

Sarah Jane nodded and walked away to her car. Merlin turned back to face Arthur who was turning slowly in a circle, trying to take everything in. Merlin had done the same thing when he had first arrived, but just as he had, Arthur was receiving strange looks from the other people in the hospital parking lot.

Merlin laid his hand on Arthur's shoulder to stop his rotation. He reached into his pocket, pulled out Arthur's id card, and handed it to him.

"Here, this is yours. Don't lose it."

After several moments of touching the foreign material followed by wondering at his image on the front, Arthur finally read the name on the card. His face screwed up in disbelief. "Arthur Peterson?" he asked incredulously.

"Sorry about that," Merlin said, stifling a chuckle, "it was the closest common name to Pendragon she could think of."

"Why couldn't you just use my real name?" Arthur demanded.

Merlin decided to tell him the truth. "Someday Arthur, you are going to do things that make you famous even into this time period. When we first arrived I used your real name and everyone thought I was either lying or crazy. Well, everyone except Martha."

Arthur didn't question his fame and Merlin supposed that Arthur had the same aversion to knowing the future that he himself had.

"At least you get to use your real name," Arthur said, but Merlin was already shaking his head. He pulled out his own id and held it up for Arthur to read. "Emrys Ambrosius," he read aloud. "Why on earth does it say that?"

Merlin shoved the card back into his pocket. "Merlin isn't exactly a common name in this time period."

Arthur raised an eyebrow. "And Emrys is?"

"Well no," Merlin replied, "but at least no one will recognize it or think we're lying by using your name and mine together."

"Recognize it? You're known in this time period? You're known for something we do together?" Arthur sounded completely dumbstruck.

"Yeah," was all he said in reply.

Arthur was silent for awhile while he contemplated what he and Merlin might do together so they would still be famous this far into the future. The fact that his manservant, of all the people of Camelot, was famous was also a little hard to wrap his head around.

"Why did you choose Emrys?" Arthur asked the moment the question popped into his head.

Merlin looked away, off down the street. "We had best get you something to eat," he said to avoid answering Arthur's question. He began walking, then turned back to look at Arthur who was obediently following, trusting him completely to lead the way in this strange new world. 'You should probably call me Emrys from now on," he said, trying not to cringe at the prospect of Arthur calling him by his druid name. "That last thing we need is people to realize that Arthur and Merlin are walking down the street together, no matter what your last name might be."