"We're here."
Sherlock shifted in the saddle and peered over Merlin's shoulder. His breathing was slightly ragged; John had examined his hands the other day, and shaken his head. They'd found honey to rub on the wounds, but there was a minor infection, and although it wasn't dangerous – yet – it was making Sherlock weak and grumpy. Not that he would admit it. "This looks like the place. From what I remember."
"It'd better be," Merlin muttered, bringing the horse to a stop. "You'll have to tell me what you want me to do."
"We'll need magic."
Merlin glanced behind him; Arthur and John's horse was rapidly catching up. "Let me do the talking."
Arthur finally drew level, wrapping the reins around his hands and frowning. "This is where you live?"
Merlin exchanged a glance with John, who was looking weary and worried, and then shook his head. "No. It's further on. We need to rest here, though."
"But it's only midday." Arthur looked at the sun. "We can get another few hour's riding in before it gets dark."
Merlin caught a glimpse of John gesturing to Sherlock behind Arthur's back, and then Sherlock began to cough, bringing his bandaged hands up his mouth and hacking into them wetly. Merlin understood immediately.
"Sherlock needs to rest," he said, keeping his face straight.
Arthur's face lapsed into a frown. "Are you sure we can't go on?"
"Please." John slid down from the horse, reached for Sherlock and helped him, still coughing, down. Sherlock sank, very convincingly, to the floor. "He needs to rest, or the infection will only get worse."
John's face was compelling, and Sherlock's red cheeks even more so. Arthur sighed. "Alright. We'll stop here. I'll set up camp."
"I can do that," Merlin said, shooting John a look. "John's going to need herbs. And firewood. Why don't the two of you look in those trees?"
Arthur frowned. "Shouldn't John stay here?"
"Do you know how to identify plants?" John gave Arthur a stern glare. "I'm not having you poison him. Merlin can stay with Sherlock; we need to go whilst we still have the light."
Arthur looked like he might have protested, but John solved the situation by storming off into the woods by himself; Merlin knew Arthur, and Arthur wasn't about to let someone he considered such a poor fighter go off on his own. Within a minute, both of them had vanished into the trees.
Sherlock stopped coughing immediately, lowering his hands with a glower. "Don't ever make me do that again."
"I didn't make you. John-"
"Be quiet." Sherlock sniffed; he looked haughty, but Merlin got the feeling he was just embarrassed. His cheeks were still red. "We don't have much time."
Merlin took the bag he had retrieved from the dungeon and obediently emptied it out. "What do you need me to do?"
Sherlock reached for the large pan still attached to their horse and began pouring liquid the skins into it – wine, cider and water and dyes mixed together in a strange, brownish pink mix. "This might not work," he muttered. "I'm guessing at the amounts."
"If it doesn't work, Arthur is going to drag you back and have you executed for sorcery."
Sherlock gave a thin smile. "You can't let him find out you knew about this. You'll need to lie to him, tell him we tricked you."
"Sherlock…"
Sherlock glared at him. "I'm serious. You're important. He's important. I'm not sure how but god knows John is convinced of it."
Merlin blinked, face slackening; his head suddenly felt heavy and confused. "What-"
"Doesn't matter. I need you to do a spell – I need you dig until you find potash."
"I don't know what it looks like."
"Reddish-pink – can you get the image from me again?"
Merlin frowned. "You mean another locator spell, only for an object?"
"If that's how it works."
"I've never done it before."
"Are you willing to try?"
Sherlock looked very intense; if Merlin hadn't known better, he would have said he was gearing up for a spell himself. He was almost feverish.
Merlin nodded.
"Do you think Sherlock will be alright?" Arthur asked, bending to find more firewood.
John resisted the urge to smirk at the thought of what Sherlock would say to him about this later. "He will. He's strong."
"Can you help him?"
John reached for a herb that looked vaguely interesting and picked it. "If I can find the right ingredients. It might take a while." John, knowing that protesting would be exactly the thing to make Arthur stay with him, let out a sigh. "You don't have to stay. I'll be fine."
Arthur snorted. "You will not. Do you not have swords at home?"
John, insulted but knowing that the definition of 'soldier' was very different for him than it was for Arthur, gave the first answer that popped into his head. "They're banned."
"Banned?"
John had to swallow to stop himself laughing. "I'll tell you about it later."
Arthur was looking at him with a strange mix of sympathy and confusion; John wondered if he'd mistaken his bright-eyed humour for tears. "Sherlock will be fine. He has a physician as a friend, and Merlin has trained with Gaius for years."
"I know." John knelt, found another herb, and added it to the ones in his hand.
"Have you known Sherlock long?"
John almost said 'a couple of years', then remembered their backstory and stopped himself. "Feels like a lifetime. Why?"
"Just wondered."
"What about you and Merlin?" John asked, finding a tree and scrambling into it, trying to make it look like he was examining the leaves. "How long have you known each other?"
"Three years."
"How did you meet?"
"He stopped me doing something stupid."
"Of course he did," John muttered.
"What?"
"I said, that must have been an interesting occasion."
Arthur laughed. "I could have strangled him. I tried to fight him, later on. He has the best luck in the world. But…I'm glad I didn't manage to hurt him, in the end."
"How did he end up being your…" The word servant sounded odd on John's tongue, so he let the sentence trail. If Merlin and Arthur hadn't seemed so happy in each other's company, he might have found it strange from the outset. As it was, they looked more like friends.
"He pulled me out the way of a knife. He's a good man, even if he is an idiot sometimes."
John scrambled down from the tree, tucking leaves into his pocket. "He thinks you're a good man, too."
Arthur blinked. "He said that?"
"Don't tell him I told you."
For a moment, Arthur just looked confused. And then he smiled. John pretended he hadn't noticed.
"We need to keep looking."
"Don't you have everything yet?"
John wondered how long exactly it would take to mine minerals by magic instead of drills, and swallowed. Like it or not, he had to give Sherlock and Merlin as long as he possibly could, just to make sure. "Not yet."
Arthur sighed. "Then I'm going back. I want to get the fire started early – there's nothing in these woods, or we would have attracted its attention by now."
John felt his cheeks drain a little as he stood, still up to his arms, in a bramble patch – the things he did for Sherlock. "Are you sure?"
"You'll be fine." Arthur smiled. "We're not far out; if you run into trouble, just shout."
"Alright," John replied, forcing himself to wait until Arthur had dodged out of sight behind the trees. Sherlock and Merlin had no doubt expected more time than this; if Arthur came back and saw what they were doing…
Arthur would be walking; he had the firewood and his armour to deal with. If John could get around him, he could get their first.
He dropped the bundle of useless herbs, got to his feet, and began to sprint.
When Merlin had finally raised a small, round piece of rock no larger than a raspberry out of the ground, he frowned. It was the colour of a worm, ugly and jagged.
"This is it?" he muttered. "This is what we had to come here for?"
Sherlock plucked the rock out of his hand. "This is it." He scowled. "There isn't much of it."
"I had to lift it miles out of the earth," Merlin snapped. "It's heavy when you have to hold it for five minutes."
Sherlock sighed. "It'll do; if this is going to work, then it's going to work. The size of the thing isn't going to make any difference." Sherlock had finally finished smashing at the silver fork with a rock. He took one of the severed prongs and dropped it into the pan. "This is far more silver than we need, and we don't have enough wine. Either the elements will come together enough for this to work, or we'll have to do it exactly."
"Is that possible?"
"Only if I can invent electricity and get this potash into potassium."
"Invent what?"
"Nothing." Sherlock scrubbed a hand over his face leaving a streak of mud over his eye from the bandages. His cheeks were still red. Perhaps there was more to the infection than Merlin had thought. "Everything's in there now, apart from the potash."
Merlin leaned over to drop the rock into the pan, but Sherlock caught his wrist.
"Not yet! We need to do it at the same time – the same time as your moment. Did you work out what it was?"
Merlin felt his armpits sting a little. Doing it the first time had been stupid, and it was downright dangerous now.
"Yes. But I need Arthur to be there. It was…different magic. Involuntary."
Sherlock pressed his hands to face and closed his eyes. "Wonderful."
"I can do it."
"You'd better." Sherlock raised his head and smiled. He looked exhausted. "Thank you."
Merlin shrugged. "You don't belong here; I wouldn't belong in your time. If it had been the other way round, you would have helped me."
Sherlock opened his mouth to reply, and then the sound of footsteps burst into their hearing, humming like a swarm of bees. Merlin whipped his head around, panicking for a moment, until he saw John, pink-faced and out of breath, speeding towards them.
"Thank god," John murmured, coming to a halt with his hands over his knees. "He's coming back – I…I…"
"Had to run?" Sherlock was smiling, but the lines of his face were taut. He extended a hand to John, the ball of potash rocking in his palm. "We're ready."
Merlin got to his feet. "I'll meet Arthur – you stay here. When you hear the signal, put the potash in."
"What's the signal?"
"Arthur laughing."
Sherlock raised an eyebrow. John didn't look surprised, but he might just have been too out of breath. "Merlin?"
"Yes?"
"Be careful."
Merlin smiled. "I always am." He hesitated a moment, but he had to know. He had to hear it in numbers and words, not vague concepts. "What was the date, exactly, when you left?"
"Fourteenth of October, 2010," John said, and Merlin couldn't stop himself clapping a hand to his mouth. John frowned. "What? Why?"
"No reason," Merlin said, still resisting the urge to laugh out of sheer amazement. "It's just…wonderful."
Sherlock smiled. "Go intercept Arthur. We'll listen for the signal."
Merlin hesitated a moment. "I suppose I should say goodbye."
For a moment, Merlin thought he saw sadness flicker across John's face, but then he nodded. "Goodbye. Be careful."
"You already said that."
"I mean it."
Merlin gave him a brief nod, turned on his heel, and left.
As soon as Merlin had gone, John crouched by Sherlock's side and took the potash from him. "I was the one who knocked it in last time," he murmured. "I probably have to do it now."
Sherlock nodded. The two of them crouched, breath mingling in the cold air – they both really needed to brush their teeth – waiting. Sherlock reached up and started unpicking one of the bandages. John slapped his hand. "Don't do that, you'll make it worse."
"You need to take my hand."
"What?"
"When it happened, I'd tried to stop you. I was holding your hand – I don't want only one of us to get sent back now."
The thought turned John's spine to ice. "Definitely not."
Sherlock peeled off the last of the bandage and threw it away, then held out his hand. "Here."
"Does it matter which hand?"
"Can you remember which it was last time?"
John thought for a moment, then shook his head. "No."
"Then we'll have to hope it works anyway."
John nodded, and then put his right hand over Sherlock's, keeping his left tightly curled around the potash. There was a tiny hole in the earth, he realised, a narrow and vertical tunnel, where Merlin must have brought it up. Sherlock's cuts were sticky under his palm.
"Ready?"
Sherlock squeezed his hand.
Thanks for reading, feedback welcome!
To be continued.
