Happy Endings

Chapter Two

Ignorance

A/N ~ Hello! I don't think anyone's reading this, but hello! To you! If you are! Moving on! Um... badumdadumdadum, what was I saying? Right. So, this chapter is from Kai's POV. As always, if you're confused about something, ASK! And also, REVIEW, since reviews spark my inspiration.

Elya was running over to him, golden-brown curls bouncing.

"Kai!" She shouted. "Kai!"

He whipped his head around, squinting in the sun. "Yeah?"

"Merlin wants you!"

"What for?"

"I don't know! He just said to come to his chambers."

Elya reached him and stopped, panting, smiling. She was very nearly a year older than him, but shorter by far, pretty, and everyone said she had her father's deep blue eyes. Kai didn't know. From everything his father, and the queen, and the knights, and, well, everyone said about King Arthur, he wished he could have had the chance to meet him. He nodded, thanked her and turned in the right direction.

When he arrived in his father's chambers, he could see immediately that his father wasn't right. Kai knew these things about Merlin. He was worried, stressed, about something, fiddling with things in a bag on his bench.

"Father? Are you... are you alright?"

"Fine."

"You look worried."

Merlin looked up and studied his son. Kai noticed he had the dark rings of a sleepless night under his eyes. There was a long silence, before Merlin spoke.

"I am." He sighed. "Come on, Kai." He swung the bag up over his shoulder and stood.

"Where are we going?"

"The queen wants me to take a look over - Aithirya." He faltered.

Kai didn't understand. What was so wrong with that? "Why is that worrying you?"

Merlin shook his head and plastered on a smile Kai knew was fake, for his sake, and his sake alone. "Never mind. Just things from a long time ago. Before you were born. You don't need to worry about me."

Neither Kai, nor Uther, nor Elya had been told much of the war, of why the twins would never know their father, or why Camelot's greatest king had fallen, but that they wouldn't, that he had, that there was a great war, and one sorcerer had restored Camelot's faith in magic. Kai didn't think this was fair. They deserved the truth, he deserved the truth. Which nobody was giving to him. Or the twins.

"You're scared she's like her mother, aren't you?"

He didn't reply.

"I don't even know what the fuss is. I don't even know what her mother did. She's not her mother."

Silence.

"Father?"

"Kai, that's enough."

"But I –"

"Kai. Just deliver this to the queen, ok?" He pressed a small bottle of clear fluid into Kai's hand. His son stared at it.

"What is it?"

"Kai. Don't. Please, don't. Just go. She'll be in her chambers."

"But shouldn't I –"

"Kaius. Go."

He sighed and strode off down the cloisters, feeling for all world like a dog directed this way and that by so many owners. He didn't understand. Why was nobody telling him anything? When he arrived at the Queen Guinevere's chambers he hesitated, knocking softly on the wood of the door. He was greeted by her servant, Taea, who brought him through to her.

Guinevere was a good queen, Kai knew. He saw her just and fair she was, as much as the rest of the world. But he also saw that she was a deeply unhappy person. Ever-mourning. Surrounded non stop and yet always so alone.

"My lady?"

She was standing by the window, just standing. Not doing anything. Gazing out through the glass, with a far away gaze, surrounded, as ever, by a haze of melancholy distance. She had one hand up against the glass.

"It's been thirteen years, Kai," She said softly, not looking around. "Thirteen years, and I still can't understand how I'm never going to see him ride back through those gates."

Kai lingered awkwardly in the arching doorway. He never knew how to respond to things like this.

Her voice wavered slightly. "The first year after his death, Kai, I stood here, every morning, and I waited for him." She closed her eyes tightly, pressing her lips together, and yet a singly tear fell from beneath her eyelid despite it. "I knew I was kidding myself, I knew he was never coming back, but…" She shook her head.

"I –" He faltered. He didn't know what to say.

She plastered on her smile and shook her head, wiping at her eyes. "Oh, don't mind me. I'm just being silly." Her eyes snagged on the bottle in his hand, and once more her face fell. "Your father sent you, I presume?" She held out a hand and he reluctantly handed over the liquid.

"What is that, my lady?"

"Nothing you need to concern yourself with. Run along."

"My lady – " He drew in a deep breath. "Does that have anything to do with Aithirya?"

The queen's expression was unreadable.

"Kaius. I think you should go back to Merlin, now."

"I'm sorry – I – it wasn't my place."

She sighed deeply. "No, you have every right to be curious. You don't know anything about the war, do you? The twins don't either," Then, after a long silence, she began to speak again, dreamily, as if she were talking to herself rather than him. "They saved me, you know. I was so lost when – that – after Arthur's death… Then they came along." A small smile was playing at the corners of her lips. "And I never knew how much I could love someone until them. Elya came first. Uther was a few minutes later. I never wanted to name him Uther, you see. But Arthur and I… Before the war… We had discussed possible baby names. Uther came up. I was reluctant, of course, to name any child of my body after the tyrant who killed my father but… Arthur spoke about second chances. How he could live up to the name and make us proud, redeem his grandfather."

Kai nodded wordlessly.

"I suppose I ought to give Aithirya a second chance, for – for her mother."

She looked down at the bottle, contemplating and crushed it in her hand, and then back up at Kai.

"And one day, we will tell you all what really happened."

A/N ~ I'm going to include Kaithirya I think. That's a good ship name. Mergana was doomed from the start, so like our friend Gwen there (even though I sort of hate her), second chances are in order. And as for the little clear bottle? Well… You'll find out about that… Later. Much later. Sorry I'm an ass at updating.