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No. 8 EVERYTHING HURTS AND I'M DYING | Back from the Dead
Lancelot stares at his reflection in the mirror. His complexion is pale and waxen as a wraith, though the shade that had possessed his body is gone now. He has been given life back, but he doesn't quite feel alive. His mind and will are his own, and yet he feels like he's lost something. There is a hollow chill deep in his sternum that makes every breath hurt.
He pulls his hauberk on, then his chainmail, hiding the shirt underneath. The black doesn't sit well with him. They aren't his clothes; they're from her, but he doesn't have anything else at the moment.
He finishes dressing, and then with heavy footfalls makes his way down to the council chambers. The room falls silent at his entrance. He holds himself stiffly with all the discipline at his command and bows before Arthur.
"My lord, I'm here to present myself for duty."
The other knights flick uncertain looks at each other. Merlin shifts his weight in the back. Arthur's expression is unreadable as he considers Lancelot.
"Your service is accepted," Arthur finally replies.
Lancelot bows again and moves to the side to take up a ceremonial position. It takes a few moments for everyone to resume their business. Arthur is consulting with his knights about matters of patrol and training. Lancelot remembers when he readily shared his input. Now he keeps his silence. He has no right to interject here. He hopes he can earn back the trust of his king and friends. It will take time, and he will remain penitent as long as it takes.
But it is not easy. Most of the noble knights stare at him with open mistrust and revulsion. They do not curb the hateful whispers within his hearing. Lancelot bears it. It is not so dissimilar to when he'd first been welcomed into the knighthood under his true name, as a commoner.
Among his friends, however, it is more difficult. They continue to look at him warily, exchanging monosyllabic greetings at worst and nervous smiles at best. Lancelot notices he is never left alone with Arthur. Gwen…Gwen quickly changes direction if they happen to catch sight of each other. Even Merlin is always watching him, on guard for signs that Morgana has reasserted control, that the shade hasn't been banished, only temporarily buried. Lancelot can't even say for sure which is the case. He doesn't remember his miraculous rescue. Merlin had to have had a hand in it, though it's clear by everyone's reactions that they are unaware of that.
Lancelot moves through his returned life like a ghost. There is a cold void inside him. Is it something missing? Something he lost in death and didn't get back in his resurrection? Or is it the presence of the shade? Simmering just beneath the surface, lurking, waiting. He doesn't speak to anyone about it. They are all expecting something to be…wrong with him, and he's loathe to confirm it in their eyes. No one asks him about it. Merlin tries sometimes, but Lancelot has nothing to say, and the warlock eventually gives up. The distance grows wider. He is a stranger to his friends now.
In addition to the weight of his sins, there is physical pain. Aches in his joints and soreness in his soft tissues. He doesn't know if it's real or a phantom sensation from the touch of dark magic. Is this really his body anyway? Or a borrowed shell he commandeered after the rightful inhabitant of the shade was removed?
So many questions but the answers don't matter. Lancelot goes about his duties without complaint, conducting himself in humble, contrite silence. Everyone gives him a wide berth. He is a haunted fixture in Camelot, no longer belonging but having nowhere else to go. Lancelot has come back from the dead only to die inside a little bit more every day. Food tastes like ash and he barely eats. He starts losing weight and muscle mass, but it's not noticeable beneath the layers of armor he always wears. The physical aches and pains keep him awake at night and drain him further. But he still throws himself into training and patrol. He is a shade after all: a tool, a weapon. No will, no autonomy. His soul has been freed but he still doesn't belong to himself.
One day in the training yard he finally collapses. His vision is blurred and his head swimming as harried voices and footsteps make a cacophony around him. He's lifted up and carried inside to Gaius's chambers where the court physician and Merlin bustle around him. His armor and shirt are removed, and there's a hushed silence in the wake of cold air brushing over his gaunt rib cage. Then voices start talking again, but Lancelot tunes them out. At some point, Gaius plies him with a tonic, which he drinks out of obedience. Merlin calls his name and tries asking him questions. Lancelot doesn't answer. He's so tired.
He drifts in a detached consciousness of pain and misery, both physical and emotional, accepting the remedies Gaius and Merlin coax down his throat but doing little else. Gaius quietly pronounces that he is dying. Lancelot already knew that.
"This has to be magic," Merlin hisses.
Of course he wants to fix it, just like he tried to fix Lancelot being turned into a shade. But what Lancelot realizes now is that there was never a fix for it. He is the walking dead and doesn't belong in this world anymore.
Time must pass, and then there are other voices in the discussion. Leon. Percival. Arthur. Someone mentions using magic to save him. Surprisingly, Arthur agrees.
After that, Lancelot is dressed and bundled up, and Merlin and Percival walk him out to the courtyard where several horses are saddled. Percival and Gwaine have to bodily lift him into the saddle, and then he's tied to the horse so he doesn't fall off. Merlin mounts his horse and rides up alongside Lancelot to take his horse's reins.
"I'm so sorry," he whispers.
Lancelot looks at him dully. "It's not your fault."
He doesn't say anything else, and they set off. He doesn't know where they're going and doesn't ask. The world passes by in muted colors. No one speaks. Lancelot sways listlessly in the saddle at the measured pace.
When they reach a lake, they stop and dismount. Percival gently pulls Lancelot down and steadies him on his feet. Lancelot gazes at the tranquil waters and wonders if he's to be laid to rest here. It looks peaceful.
Arthur shifts his weight uncertainly. "Now what?"
"Gaius said the waters have healing powers," Merlin answers.
When Lancelot doesn't move, Percival and Elyan take him by the arms and walk him into lapping water. Elyan shivers at the cold, but it's no worse than the cold Lancelot has carried inside him this whole time. They wade in until they're waist deep and then Percival and Elyan stop. They look around, not knowing what to do. Lancelot pulls away from them and keeps going, and they let him, more out of confusion than trust.
Lancelot shuffles over the rocky bottom until it drops away and he has to swim. He only treads water for a brief moment before letting himself slip beneath the surface. The encompassing darkness now has weight and shape; the shadow within moves out and envelopes him. He lets himself sink. He rose from the waters, and to the waters he shall return.
But then a soft glow suffuses through the darkness. Blue lights trickle through beads of air bubbles, and Lancelot watches in stupor as a figure appears. She's beautiful, radiant with a warm aura that expands outward and surrounds Lancelot. She smiles kindly at him and reaches out to touch his cheek. A spark zings from her fingertips and through his skin, spreading swiftly and deeply throughout his body. His chest seizes like life gusting back into him, and his lungs leap with the need for air. The lady spares him one last tender look before he pushes himself with all his might to the surface, breaking free and gasping in a lungful of air.
He flails and splashes, disoriented. Then Percival and Elyan are there grabbing him, and he struggles at first until he registers they're trying to help him. Together, they half swim, half crawl their way to shore. Lancelot drops to his hands and knees in the shallows, breathing heavily, water streaming down his face. It mixes with warm tears he didn't know he possessed anymore.
The others splash into the water and help draw them all the way out.
"Lancelot?" Merlin asks tentatively.
He nods. "I'm here. I'm…I'm all right."
And he is. That piece he'd felt like he'd lost is back now, a subtle sense of stability where the void had been. He looks at Merlin.
"I'm so sorry, Merlin. I…I don't know what came over me these past weeks."
Merlin smiles sympathetically. "You've been through a lot." He pulls Lancelot into a hug.
When he lets go, the other knights step in to hug him as well, and that reticence they'd shown him before is now gone. Lancelot's head is clearer now, and he realizes that perhaps they'd been so guarded because there had been something wrong with him. He feels more like himself now, though. Still unsure, still uncertain of his place. But there is hope in the way his friends wrap him up and take him home.