The next morning, Cass opened her eyes to find that she was still tired. She'd been disturbed all night by her reoccurring nightmares, and what was worse, was the fact that now Lancelot knew she was having them. Cass made a mental reminder to ask him not to mention them to Tristan or any of the others. The fewer people who knew about her nightmares, the fewer questions would be asked about them. And that would be better for everyone. She'd done enough changing the past with her simple appearance in this time; she wasn't about to have to explain that her plan was to meddle with events and save the three doomed Knights. She couldn't let them know that they were supposed to die. It would change too much.

Cass yawned and sat up slowly. Smoothing her hair down, she forced herself out of bed, the wooden floor feeling cool against her bare feet. Cass dressed herself slowly, pulling on her red dress followed by her shoes and eventually her cloak. She strapped her swords about her waist in her usual morning ritual, and left her room; but she paused in the corridor. Cass almost considered knocking on Lancelot's door, but the sound of soft snores that she heard from beside his door made her change her mind and instead, she chose to head to the tavern. She could talk to Lancelot sometime later and avoid feeling bad for waking the Knight.

As she stepped outside, Cass was glad that she'd decided to wear her cloak. The cold morning air swirled around her, and Cass pulled her cloak closer to herself, trying to insulate whatever warmth she had. It didn't take her long to reach the tavern, but she stopped as figure all but walked into her. This is not what I need, Cass thought as she tried to move out of Aldwyn's path. He stopped when he saw her though.

"Cassandra. It's nice to see you."

Cass gave a small smile back at him; still sure that thus far she'd been unable to pass off a totally convincing smile towards him.

"How've you been?" he asked, seemingly not noticing the falseness in her smile.

Cass' forced smile faltered a little at the question.

"I've been better," she answered quickly.

"How about you?"

"I'm getting increasingly better as the morning progresses it seems... But anyway, what's wrong?"

Cass paused before answering. Even though the last time they'd met, Aldwyn had said he just wanted to be friends with her; Cass couldn't help but feel slightly uncomfortable at the implication of his answer. But if her suspicions about Aldwyn were correct, she knew that feeding him the information that she and the Knights wanted the plotters to think was correct couldn't hurt.

"Tristan and Dagonet are out investigating something Tristan saw," she said with a frown.

It was Aldwyn's turn to frown, and for a moment, Cass couldn't understand why.

"You're friends with the Knights?"

Cass blinked. She had forgotten that she'd never said anything to Aldwyn about the Knights. But that makes no sense; if he was one of the plotters, he would already know that. Two can play at this game, she thought, as she bit back the frown that threatened to reappear.

"Erm, yes... That's probably an understatement really.

"How so?"

"I guess that they're like my family."

"You're related to one of them?" Aldwyn asked, confusion registering clearly on his face.

Cass blushed though she wasn't sure why and answered, "No. It's just that... When I came to this Fort, they took me in. And, on top of that; Tristan and I are..."

She blushed again as she continued, "together."

There was a long silence before Aldwyn replied. Cass was used to long silences after spending so much time with Tristan, but this wasn't like the silences that filled their time. This silence was more than awkward. But Aldwyn's response broke the quiet in a way that Cass had not been expecting.

"Well, I must say that I'm quite glad you warned me off so quickly then; I don't much fancy trying to explain myself to him," Aldwyn answered with a small smile.

Cass stared at him blankly for a moment, before letting a real smile replace the fake one.

"Yes. It's probably good that it didn't come to that," Cass agreed.

Aldwyn looked as if he was about to speak again, but something seemed to change his mind for him. Cass followed his eyes to behind her and turned, only to find Lancelot.

"Morning, Lancelot... Have you two met, by the way?" she added, trying to smooth out the awkward tension that seemed to invade the atmosphere due to the strange look on the Knight's face.

"We haven't actually," Aldwyn answered, trying to maintain the pleasant tone that he spoke to Cass with.

"I'm Aldwyn."

"Lancelot," the Knight replied, nodding once to the man before him.

"My apologies for interrupting, but I was on my way to get some breakfast, and I wondered if you cared to join me," he said, speaking directly to Cass.

Cass blinked.

"Oh; yes, sure, I'd love to. You go ahead, I'll only be second," she answered with a smile.

Lancelot nodded and reluctantly moved past Cass and the man.

"Sorry about that," Cass said quietly to Aldwyn.

"They're all just a little protective over me."

"A little?" Aldwyn replied with a small smile.

She smiled apologetically back to him and shrugged.

"I'd better go before he comes back looking for me," Cass joked.

"It was nice talking to you," she added before walking past the man.

She didn't turn back. If she had, she would have seen him watching her leave. Cass smiled to Lancelot and the others as she reached the corner table and took her usual seat. Lancelot seemed to wait until all the other Knights had returned to their conversations before turning to Cass.

Under his breath he said, "Aldwyn?"

Cass sighed and shrugged.

"Formerly an overly-friendly man. Now; apparently just friendly," she said, trying to simply explain what she thought Aldwyn was.

"I don't know though," she added in a whisper, hoping that he understood that she was unsure of whether Aldwyn was one of those involved in the plot against Arthur or not.

Lancelot slowly nodded, but said no more on the subject. She was almost sure that he would mention it to the other Knights. Probably when Tristan and Dagonet return, she thought. As the group ate, Cass said next to nothing. Not because there was something playing on her mind- which there always seemed to be- but just because she didn't feel like speaking. She found that times like those often went by with fewer "Are you alright"s when Tristan was there, but after she'd convinced the others that she was fine, Cass sat in relative peace, just listening to everyone else's conversations.

At one point though, when Lancelot had stopped speaking, she quietly asked him not to mention her nightmares. He looked reluctantly at her for a moment, but agreed when he remembered how insistent she had been in not telling him what they were about. Lancelot wanted to ask her about them, but decided, at least, now was not the time to do it.

After breakfast, the Knights decided to head out and train. They asked Cass to join them, but she declined, surmising that the plotters would see her training as an attempt to reveal their plan to the Knights. As she watched them leave the tavern, Cass couldn't help but think that her training was seriously going to suffer as a result of this plot. And that would make her less helpful in any eventuality. She sighed and began clearing the plates from the corner table.

The day passed quickly for Cass, tempered only by her wondering of when Tristan and Dagonet would return. It took until the night started to close in, darkening the sky, for Cass to begin truly worrying. They were only supposed to be gone for half the morning. They were only supposed to be pretending to check something, she thought. Shouldn't they be back by now? It wasn't long until Arthur and the others came to the tavern, and Cass was straight over to them. She waited until they were sat down before she questioned them.

"Are they back yet?"

Arthur shook his head and Cass frowned.

"But I thought that they were just supposed to be investigating something. Shouldn't they be back by now?"

Cass saw Arthur and Lancelot exchange a grim look before he answered.

"They should be," Arthur confirmed.

"If they're not back by morning, we'll go after them."

"M-morning...? You're going to wait until morning?"

"Relax, Cass," Gawain chipped in.

"Relax?" Cass said, unsure of what was going on.

Why aren't they going out after them? Cass thought as she tried to understand why they didn't seem as worried as she was.

"They're used to looking after themselves. They'll be alright," was Arthur's simple response.

"Besides," Bors interjected.

"Lancelot isn't as good at tracking as Tristan. I'd say we stand more of a chance of finding Arthur's Pope than Tristan and Dagonet in the dark."

Lancelot feigned hurt, but conceded that Bors was right. He knew that his tracking skills were a poor trade off for the silent scout's. Cass opened her mouth to speak, but realised that they were right. She gave the group a short nod and tried to focus her mind back on work. It wasn't as easy as she thought it would be- and she hadn't thought it would be an easy task at all.

Something just tugged at the back of her mind telling her that because Tristan and Dagonet weren't back yet, something was definitely wrong. The night progressed in much the same way until Cass couldn't really stand it anymore. She said goodbye to Vanora and the others and left for her room, only to find Lancelot coming up behind her. Cass smiled and waited for him.

"They'll be fine you know," he said as they started walking back to their rooms together.

Cass gave him a sideways look that told him she wasn't too sure.

"Arthur's right; they can look after themselves. They've survived over fourteen years fighting on this island, what's one more night?"

She could tell that he was just trying to lighten the mood. Both of them knew exactly what one night could mean but were unwilling to say it aloud. Cass let out a long sigh as her expression turned back into a brow-creasing frown.

"Are you like this every time we go on a mission?" he asked jokingly with a small smile.

"Like what?"

"Nightmares, moody frowns and depressed sighs?"

"Pretty much," she replied, trying to mimic his expression, but failing miserably.

"Poor Vanora," he answered, elbowing her playfully.

She did smile that time, but only fleetingly. For his part, Lancelot seemed pleased enough that he'd managed to pull that emotion free of her seemingly depressed state of mind. They parted ways and turned to their respective rooms. Cass knew already that her sleep would be even more plagued by nightmares than the previous night, and almost dreaded trying to sleep. But she couldn't stand staying up and worrying, so eventually decided that the nightmares preferable. No matter how much they hurt her to have to watch, they were better than the scenarios that her over-active imagination was coming up with.

A knock woke her, as she was used to. And as she opened her eyes, she once again felt tired as the nightmares had kept her constantly in and out of sleep. Her curtains were closed, so she did not notice that the sky outside was still as dark as midnight. She did not think anything more of it than a normal knock at her door as she sat up and rubbed her eyes.

"Hello?" she asked to the closed door.

"Cass? Can I come in?" Lancelot's voice came back.

Cass frowned. There was something in the tone of his voice that caused her to pause, and she didn't know what it was.

"Yeah, sure," she answered, still frowning.

Lancelot poked his head through her door almost as soon as she'd acknowledged him. If she had been a little more awake, and her eyes a little more focussed, Cass might have noticed the odd expression on his face.

"Cass... You have to get dressed and come with me."

Cass was confused.

Not understanding what was happening, she looked at him for a moment, before asking, "What's wrong?"

He didn't say anything for a moment, but instead moved into her room and picked up her training trousers from where they lay over the back of her chair. He tossed them to her and she caught them clumsily. Still confused, she pulled her trousers on, and then shoved her feet into her boots.

"Alright, I'm dressed. What's going on?"

"Tristan and Dagonet are back," he answered finally in a low voice.

Cass froze.

"W-what's happened?"

Lancelot said nothing, but he took hold of Cass' arm and pulled her out of her room.

"Dagonet will explain."

Cass stopped; Lancelot's hand on her arm pulling slightly. He turned back to look at her and saw the pained look in her wide eyes.

"Lancelot. Wait. Tell me what's going on." she said, her voice wavering with worry.

Lancelot didn't say anything once more. A shadow of something passed over his face as Cass stared at him, waiting for an answer. Her heart was racing. So was her mind. All signs pointed to something bad having happened when Dagonet and Tristan were out on their mission. And Lancelot just wasn't telling her what it was. What isn't he telling me? Cass thought as a silence voided between them, making seconds feel like hours.

"Dagonet will explain," he repeated, pulling a wide-eyed Cass along after him again.

Author's Note: Sorry for the longer wait for this chapter. I had a whole plot shuffle thing going on, but I've pretty much sorted it out now... Sort of. Anyway, I hope you guys are still enjoying the story, even with the weekly wait for chapters.

Kit xx