In Arthur's defense—although he didn't think it wasn't much of a defense—time in Avalon was an odd, insubstantial thing. The island existed in a sort of eternal now that made it very, very difficult to recognize the passage of time, and that was before confronting the fact that it felt no need to behave with anything even close to consistency. Arthur had attended banquets that lasted over a year, if the changing of the seasons outside the glass windows was anything to go by; the trees had scarcely begun to show their buds as the boar was carved, and they were in full bloom as a heaped platter was placed before Arthur. The attentive servers cleared the dishes for the second course as the boughs hung heavy with fruit, and brought in the sweets as the last of the leaves fell. They ended the meal with glasses of hot, spiced wine, drinking toasts to anything and everything they could think of as the lacework of frost melted on the windows and the first tiny leaves were just appearing on the trees.

And conversely, he had been on adventures that lasted weeks or months—riding hard, sleeping rough, crossing plains, climbing mountains, and fording rivers, chasing a magical salmon that could, if asked politely, offer guidance on their quest, then tracking down the white stag that could lead them to the magical treasure it insisted they had to have before they could hope to prevail, fighting duels and solving riddles, or what-have-you—finally returning home, victorious and elated, only to discover that scarcely an hour had passed for anyone other than himself and his companions. They all got used to it. Time was fluid, in Avalon, and all they really needed to know was that there was time enough for everything you wanted in the span of a day, with the promise of long, sweet nights (with a partner, or more than one, if you wanted that, or deep, refreshing slumber with no bad dreams if you didn't,) to follow each one.

Time wasn't reliable in Avalon. Arthur knew that. That didn't mean that he would ever forgive himself for how horribly long it took him to notice what was missing.

Elyan was waiting on the shore when Arthur arrived, sitting up in a small boat being poled by a woman who had introduced herself as the Lady of the Lake and had brushed off all his subsequent questions—and there had been rather a lot of them—with a serene nod and a promise that answers would be forthcoming. Later. Since he wasn't certain if that was intended as reassurance or threat, it hadn't done much for his fraying temper, or the rising panic.

Seeing Elyan was, literally, a godsend. Arthur had no words for the utter relief he felt, looking at the broad smile on the familiar face. His previous experiences interacting with the dead had been uniformly bad, and he hadn't quite dared hope that it would improve, even now that he was one of them. He'd dreaded coming face to face with Uther's scornful disappointment, he'd feared meeting the mother whose life he had cost, and the mere thought of all the innocent lives he'd ended, one way or the other, made him quail inside. One murdered druid boy had been enough to bring him, weeping, to his knees. How was he going to deal with hundreds or thousands like him?

Elyan had suffered, and eventually died, at Morgana's hand, but in the final analysis, he'd been little more than collateral damage in her vendetta against Arthur and Gwen. He'd died a knight of Camelot, because Arthur had seen fit to drag him from his forge, which put a sword in his hand and a target on his back. He'd died an orphan, because Pendragon justice had murdered his father. Arthur was simultaneously overjoyed to see the man he'd scarcely had the chance to mourn as his life fell apart around him, and reluctant to face a man who'd suffered, if indirectly, at his hand. What in hell could he say?

He needn't have worried. Elyan hurried over to him before Arthur had quite made it to the shore, and flung his arms around him with unfeigned enthusiasm. "Arthur!" he said, as they broke apart, still ankle deep in the water. "It's good to see you again."

"You too," Arthur said, smiling faintly. "I guess we could both have wished for better circumstances, but, well…"

Elyan laughed. "Could have been worse ones, too," he agreed. "Welcome to Avalon."

"Thanks," said Arthur, and they both stepped out of the water. He took a look around; his first impression was of awe. Everything was just a bit more than it was in the world he knew; the sky a richer shade of blue, the vegetation a bit greener, the flowers brighter and more fragrant, the lake water sparkling like liquid diamond. The very sunlight was different; it burnished everything it fell upon until it seemed to glow with an inner fire of its own.

It reminded him of a rock in a forest clearing, a rock with a sword jutting out of it. He closed his eyes, relived the moment his hand had curled around the hilt, the moment he'd believed that anything really was possible, that he really could be the king he wanted so desperately to be. Remembered the way the sun had glittered against that perfect, impossible blade as it slid so simply and naturally from the stone, like a part of himself he hadn't known was missing until it was suddenly there.

That clearing, that stone, that sword… it had all felt a little like this. A little brighter, a little heavier—a time and place that were more profoundly real, on some level he didn't know how to define, than the ordinary workaday world. A place where things meant more. Were more. A place where he, himself, was more Arthur than he'd ever been, and didn't need to fear what that might mean, or that it might not be enough.

(Merlin had brought him to that clearing, too. Merlin had shown him to that missing piece of himself. Merlin had forced Arthur to see himself as Merlin had always seen him. Merlin had brought him to that meaning, that realness, just as he'd brought him here, to this one. Merlin had always led, followed, or accompanied him to the places he truly needed to go...)

Arthur cleared his throat, blinked a couple of times, and looked around again. This time, he noticed another figure standing a little away, and he focused his attention on that, because it seemed as though it would be easier than pursuing that line of thought any further. Except it wasn't.

Lancelot. The man standing silently off to the side was Lancelot. It did occur to Arthur that he should be angry with the man, and for a split second, he was. Then the thought vanished as quickly as it came. This was Lancelot—his friend, his knight, his rival, his rescuer—and death had a real way of bringing things like a stolen kiss or two into its proper perspective. He took two quick steps towards the knight, caught him by the shoulders, and embraced him like a brother.

Lancelot, with an audible sigh of relief, hugged back. Later, when Arthur had been given the real details of exactly what had happened in those horrible days before what should have been his wedding—the shade, the brainwashing, the love charm, the witch—he was glad that he'd heeded his better instincts, but even before he'd learned any of that, somehow it was enough that the man was there, that Arthur wasn't alone. They had parted on bad terms so many times; he was grateful that they had one more chance to make things right.

They went further away from the lakeshore, deeper into Avalon proper, and found themselves at a feast in honor of Arthur's arrival. The long tables were filled to bursting. Roughly half the richly dressed guests were familiar to Arthur—some knights, some friends, some mere acquaintances, but all people he'd lost—and the other half were strangers; he didn't think that they were human, many of them, but they were gracious and welcoming, and what else really mattered? They feasted and drank and laughed and talked and reveled and laughed some more, and when Gwaine strode into the banquet hall halfway through the soup course, the celebration only got more raucous.

The next day was much the same, with the addition of a long sparring session in possibly the most perfect practice field Arthur could have imagined, the ground smooth and even, the grass velvety and impossibly green. Somewhat to Arthur's chagrin, the sword he'd been given, while beautifully crafted, superbly balanced, and well-fitted to his hand, couldn't hold a candle to his sword, his missing piece, the dragon-forged beauty he'd drawn from the stone. No one seemed to know what had happened to it; he knew that he ought to hope that whoever had found it after the battle was using it well, but all he could muster was a vague resentment of the fact that it was not at his side where it belonged.

(The sword wasn't the only thing that should have been at his side and wasn't…)

He'd asked the Lady about it. She'd just smiled, shrugged, and said that it would all come right in time. That he'd regain the things he'd lost if he was patient. Then she'd laughed, and said that he'd get them even if he wasn't patient, but that it would be a great deal easier for everyone if he made the effort. Herself included.

That didn't strike him as much of an answer—it was, essentially, a bastard child of 'Later' and the dreaded 'We'll see,' which everyone knows means no—but he knew it was all he was going to get.

There was music in the great hall that night. A bard sang for the court, her voice unearthly and so sweet that it almost hurt, and the music she drew from her harp (was it a harp? She plucked the strings, but in addition to that, sometimes it sounded like bells chiming, and sometimes like a flute,) was simultaneously like nothing Arthur had ever heard on earth and as familiar as the lullabies his nurse had once crooned.

Some of the ballads were about him. Arthur wasn't quite sure how he felt about that. None of them were terribly accurate, and he wasn't sure how he felt about that, either.

The day after that—or was it the next month? The next year? Hard to tell—the entire court went hunting, some a-horseback, others mounted on unicorns or kelpies. The spears were tipped with something that shone like mother-of-pearl, as were the crossbow bolts, which also appeared to be fletched with peacock feathers. Arthur himself, and his knights, rode white stallions that made the finest horses in Camelot's stables look like swaybacked mules by comparison. The hounds were white, with red ears, and somehow Arthur didn't doubt that they understood every word he said.

They were tireless, that was for certain, and clever, and they needed to be, because the game was crafty and the terrain uncertain. If Arthur had ever enjoyed a hunt more, he didn't remember it, and when they returned, their trophies in tow, Perceval was standing on the lakeshore.

It couldn't have been more than a week (or a year, or a decade…) later that Leon strode onto the tournament field, just in time to be armed and armored for the melee. He looked down at himself in wonder as a sidhe-squire offered him his helmet, and said, with a laugh, "Gods, I'd almost forgotten how good this felt. It's been years since I donned armor, much less took the field."

"Years?" Arthur said, trying to remember how long he'd been on the island. Not so long as all that, surely.

Leon raised his eyebrows. "My last tournament was shortly after my first grandson was born, and he's a squire now." He smiled ruefully. "I lost. Quite badly. Which is why it was my last tournament."

His grandson? Leon hadn't even been married at Camlann, let alone a father, Arthur thought, dazed.

Lancelot clapped Leon on the shoulder. "You've a chance to make up for it, then."

Gwaine smirked. "That is, if you think you can keep up with us, old man!"

Leon wasn't taking that lying down. "As I recall, boy, the last time you and I tried conclusions, you were the one we had to carry to Gaius afterwards."

Gwaine, unoffended, just laughed. On earth, he'd always sounded carefree, and that hadn't changed. But Avalon had leached away much of the bitterness hiding beneath his easy smile, and now he sounded happy, too. The difference was subtle, but unmistakable. "Then I guess that means it's your turn to eat dirt."

Arthur never knew if it was or it wasn't, because just before the joust began, the Lady of the Lake came up to him. "Arthur… I need you to come with me," she said in her gentle voice.

He looked at her, surprised, but nodded acquiescence, and followed her away from the field. He felt no fear, not even trepidation at the summons. She wore her authority, not to mention her power, far more lightly than Uther ever had—than Arthur ever had, either—but somehow that only made it more obvious. Uther had been obeyed because he was feared; Arthur had been obeyed because he was respected. The Lady was obeyed because it was inconceivable that anyone would do otherwise.

But she was kind, gracious—she was a guardian, keeping danger away, not a guard keeping her people in. Arthur couldn't even imagine her ever being willfully cruel. And even if that hadn't been so, there was a very faint smile on her face, and it wasn't a 'ha ha! Now that I've lulled you into a false sense of security, I'm going to spring the trap!' sort of smile.

It did occur to Arthur that the fact that he recognized that sort of smile so readily was more than a little depressing, but he didn't have time to worry about it before they'd reached the lakeshore.

"Why did you—" Arthur began, then stopped as a tiny dark smudge at the edge of the horizon drew closer, becoming a small boat. He squinted, trying to see who was aboard, but at that distance, he could see nothing but a red-clad body with white, white hair.

He rubbed his eyes, looked again. No, he was wrong; the hair was gray, but the boat was too heaped with flowers to make out anything else.

As the boat drew nearer, he corrected himself again. Not gray hair; salt-and-pepper at most, and now he could see that it framed a dark face he'd been longing for since the moment he'd kissed it farewell. He made a small, involuntary noise, realizing, in a blinding flash, that yes, he really had spent decades in Avalon, because now he remembered every minute he'd spent waiting. Every single interminable minute.

The boat grounded itself on the shore, and Gwen stepped onto the sand, her long, jet-black hair tumbling any which way down her back, not a strand of silver to be seen. She was as young as the day Arthur had put a crown on her head, as beautiful as the day he'd put his heart in her hand.

She flung herself into his arms, or perhaps he lunged to embrace her, or maybe both at once.

Oh, that moment. That perfect, perfect moment.

It didn't make up for all the years they'd lost, all the memories they hadn't had the chance to make, the life they should have had. It didn't make up for all the lonely nights or swallowed tears. It wasn't fair recompense for the children they might have had.

But it was a perfect moment nonetheless.

One by one, Arthur's chosen family reassembled around him. And, looking back on it later, Arthur supposed he could be forgiven for not noticing one absence in particular, or, at most, simply shrugging it off and assuming that it was just a matter of time before the matter rectified itself. And time was fluid in Avalon. It was a forgivable lapse. Which didn't mean he'd ever forgive himself for making it.

A day (or two, or a thousand,) after Gwen's arrival, the two of them, and his original Round Table, were sharing stories and mulled cider. She had several decades of stories to tell them, after all, and Arthur was, naturally, agog to hear how Camelot had fared in the golden age he'd died to help bring about.

Naturally, one name in particular cropped up a fair amount in her stories. Arthur laughed aloud at one in particular. It wasn't that the story itself was describing anything funny; it was just that she made a single, casual reference to how 'Merlin regrew the entire village's wheat crop, overnight, after a particularly bad storm had flattened their fields,' and the fact that she only mentioned it, in passing, a minor detail in a more important event, amused and impressed Arthur in equal measure. Magic really had returned to Albion, and it really had been the force for good Merlin had always sworn it could be.

"Speaking of which, he's got to be, what? Seventy, eighty years old? Tell me, Gwen—does he have that awful beard he always grew when he pretended to be Dragoon the Insufferable, or whatever he called himself?"

She laughed. "No, thank goodness. No beard. He still looks pretty much like he always did."

"So, like a scarecrow who hasn't seen the sun in a year," said Arthur. "I'll keep that in mind. I mean, he's got to be on his last legs by now; he'll probably be turning up here any day."

"Oh, no," said the server, refilling Arthur's cup. "He won't be coming here."

Arthur stilled. "What did you say?"

The server—a young Puca—looked abashed. "I'm sorry, sire; I shouldn't have intruded in your conversation."

"Never mind that. What do you mean, he won't be coming here?"

Now the Puca looked confused, as though Arthur had asked why apples were red or the sky blue. "I… I only meant… that is, it's just… Emrys was never going to be brought to Avalon. I'm sorry, sire—I thought you knew that."

The sudden silence, not to mention the shocked glares he received from all of them, made it abundantly clear that, no, they had not known that. He clutched his pitcher nervously.

"Why not?" Arthur ground out.

"B-b-because he… well… Avalon was meant for the, the, the fallen heroes of Camelot," he stammered. "A place where the Once and Future King and his court can rest until it's time for you to return. And he's not—"

"He's not what? He's not part of my court? Not a knight? Not a hero?"

"Not dead," said a new voice. The Lady nodded at the thoroughly intimidated cupbearer, and he scurried away, still clutching his pitcher. "Not dying. Not welcome. And not needed here."

"That's utter shite. He probably did more for Camelot than the rest of us put together," snapped Gwaine.

She just nodded. "Probably. The fact remains. Emrys will never cross into Avalon. He can't."

*.*.*.*.*.