A/N: I feel like the chapters of this story are rather short. I'm starting to wonder what you all think about the pacing of this story. Please let me know! I'd love any reviews, positive or negative!

As the sun rose, sweeping a cool breeze over the countryside, Merlin opened his heavy eyes. Half his face was cold and wet from sleeping on the dewy morning grass. Looking around, he noted that his garden seemed... different, somehow. Fresher. More beautiful. Physically, nothing had changed. None of the plants had grown since he had last seen them.

Actually... everything around him- the sky, the trees, his home... it all seemed brighter, somehow.

Merlin shook his head. He couldn't allow himself to hope, not again. His hopes had been raised far too many times only to be crushed by the reality that he still was and always would be alone.

Still, he couldn't ignore the signs.

I'll just go down to the lake to see if anything over there seems different, he resolved. It's not like I'm getting my hopes up. I'm simply going to make an objective evaluation of the situation. Just in case.

He began to hike briskly toward the lake. His ragged breathing became faster and faster with anticipation as he broke into a run.

Arthur won't be there, he reminded himself. I'm only doing this to put my mind at rest. Better to make sure now than to waste time worrying about him later.

But as he reached the shore of the lake, he nearly bowled over in shock.

Magic.

It flowed through this hallowed ground as purely and as powerfully as it had flowed through Merlin and the Earth the night before. Merlin had, in the days of magic, often been able to sense its use by other sorcerers. But this... this felt as if all the remnants of the Earth's magic were concentrated in this very spot.

His bright blue eyes widening, Merlin looked around for nearby life. Spotting two large workmen a short ways down the shore, he smiled, exhaling sharply in excitement.

"Excuse me?" he called, running toward them. "Excuse me! Sirs?"

The burly, muscled men were in the process of carrying a wide tree away from the lake. Merlin hoped they hadn't felled it themselves, the thought of anyone harming this land made his skin crawl. They turned to face him, setting down their load.

"Have you... erm... have you seen anyone? Er... last night? Did anything strange happen?"

The men glanced skeptically at each other before the shorter one responded in a thick accent, "Strange...? You mean that strange bloke last night?"

Merlin's heart skipped a beat. "Who?" he asked breathlessly. "What did he look like?"

The man chortled. "He looked crazy, that's what he looked like. No clothes, a giant sword, dunno what the hell that language was..."

The other man joined in, laughing cruelly. "Idiot. He were going to kill us with that thing!"

Merlin felt his pulse quicken even more so than it already had. "Where is he now?" he demanded frantically.

"You know him?" the first man barked.

"Yes! He's... my friend."

"He had some sort of a fit. We called the police as soon as we could. 'Course, they were busy..." he trailed off. The previous night's bombing seemed like a million years ago to Merlin.

"I'm pretty sure they took him to the jail," the other man suggested, "until they figure out what to do with him. My money's on the madhouse," he snickered. But Merlin had already taken off running.

"Thank you!" he called over his shoulder.

Arthur was back. He knew. He could feel it. Merlin's mouth broke into a grin as he ran toward the city.

Arthur, you idiot. You've been back less than a day and already I have to save your ass. Just like old times.

On the positive side, Arthur had had plenty of time to think.

He had woken up in what he could only assume was a dungeon. The walls were a dull, strangely smooth gray stone, and a row of thin black bars prevented his exit through the door. A similar set of bars also blocked off the small window just above Arthur's head.

After evaluating his surroundings, he had spent the better part of an hour yelling out the door and window for someone to release him at once. The strange people had acknowledged his demands initially, coming over to see what was wrong with him. Arthur had demanded to know who was keeping him here and where he was and what was going on, but his efforts were in vain. The people responded in a foreign tongue, serving only to aggravate him further. They had hovered around him for a few minutes before apparently deciding that attempts at communication were futile and they had better leave him alone. Eventually, Arthur had stopped screaming and sat down on the room's only piece of furniture: a hard bench.

It was then that he noticed the unfamiliar clothing he was wearing. The material was strangely soft, and it hung loosely off of him like a set of sleeping garments. The shirt and pants were a dull gray, only slightly darker than the prison walls surrounding him.

He didn't remember having clothing on him before. Someone must have dressed him while he was unconscious. Perhaps it had been his manservant...

But it couldn't have been, he realized horribly, his heart dropping into his stomach. Merlin is gone. Everyone is gone.

Understanding crashed over him like a tidal wave, almost literally knocking him off his feet.

He quite clearly remembered dying, of that he was certain. Slowly, and then quickly, his memories came flooding back to him. He remembered his unspoken goodbye to Merlin. He remembered spending an eternity alone in a hollow, stagnant state of consciousness in death. He remembered sensing an enormous passage of time, even if his perception of it all was quite different than those on Earth.

Everyone is gone now, he finally understood. He had acted rashly before, having just reawoken in a state of immense confusion. His instinctive actions had led him to lose Excalibur, he realized, but it mattered little to him now. All that mattered to him was the one thought that now weighed tortuously on his mind.

Everything and everyone in Camelot was gone, and he had no idea how much time had passed since then.

Arthur leaned back against the wall, his hands falling limply into his lap. His eyelids slid shut as his head came to rest against the cold surface. Their faces swam across his mind: Gwen, his knights, Merlin... everyone he had loved and lost.

Strangely... he didn't remember Merlin dying. A bubble of hope rose in his chest. Everyone else was definitely gone, but... was it possible that Merlin was still alive? Everything was a blur, forgotten as easily as one forgets a dream hours after waking up.

He can't be.

He was still unsure as to how much time had elapsed since his death. Several lifetimes, easily. Arthur wasn't sure how, he just... knew. He knew that it had been far too long for anyone to have survived. Arthur was an artifact of the past, returned to the Earth by the forces of a destiny he didn't understand, one he would have to realize utterly and completely alone.

A tear fell to his cheek. He sighed in despair, allowing himself to reminisce on his loved ones: his beloved, steadfast queen, the men who had pledged their lives to Camelot's glory, the cheerful servant who would have gone to the ends of the Earth and back for his king... the servant for whom Arthur would have done the same.