Beta-read by Caethes! Apologies for any inaccuracies in British stuff. I'm American. I tried.

...

As Arthur brought the car to a stop at the vantage point, its underside squeaked ominously.

He winced. He'd probably wrecked the axle, going here instead of the actual parking lot of the graveyard, but it would be worth it.

He hoped.

The second he shut off the motor, frigid air seeped into the car, clawing its way through whatever cracks it could find. He pulled his coat around him and reached across the seat for his takeout container and the chopstick package.

It was colder than he'd thought it would be.

Wishing he could crank his car for a bit of heat, he jabbed his chopsticks into the mass of noodles and glared at the array of tombstones. From where he was parked, they looked like chipped, askew teeth poking up from the ground.

For the next half hour, he slurped his way through the noodles. Then, when the container was empty, he leaned back in his seat and started drumming his fingers against the steering wheel.

Nothing was happening.

The graveyard was as desolate as when he'd first pulled up.

He frowned. Even though he'd known he would have to wait for a while, he hadn't thought it would be this long. Maybe it was the wrong graveyard, but he didn't think so because his father had been complaining about what had been happening for at least a week, and when Uther Pendragon complained about something, everyone remembered it.

Arthur hadn't exactly wanted to spend his evening in a cold car overlooking a yard filled with buried boxes of composting corpses, either. But something had told him he needed to go there and find the culprit of the grave desecrations (insanity, probably), so there he was.

He checked his noodles.

The box was still empty.

He was ten seconds from cranking his car and backing out when he saw it.

A tiny glow on the other side of the graveyard, moving up and down as though it were trying to signal someone.

Arthur narrowed his eyes.

It appeared that his evening wasn't so much of a waste, after all. It was likely he would even be able to cash in on the reward money the local constable's office was offering.

As the light started to come towards him, he pried the car door open.

An alarm started going off.

"No, no, no," he hissed, diving back into the car and almost smashing his nose into the middle console between the two seats.

The car continued blaring into the empty air, loud enough to both wake the dead and everyone in a half-mile radius. After fumbling with the keys for a few seconds, he finally got a grip on them and jammed the right one into the ignition.

The beeping stopped.

Cautiously, Arthur peered over the dash.

The light was gone.

He swore.

He didn't really care about the reward money, but now that he had seen the person, he felt a responsibility to catch him. It didn't look like that would be happening now that he had scared the grave desecrator off, however.

After a few minutes of nothing, Arthur sighed and went to close his car door and turn the ignition key.

The light reappeared.

Leaning forward, Arthur peered at it. Even though a small amount of light was seeping through the moody clouds, it was difficult to make out what the figure was doing. He was going to have to get out of the car again.

This time, he didn't set off the theft alarm.

He skidded down the small embankment and then found a sturdy tree to hide behind.

The light was bigger now and moving steadily through the tombstones, pausing at each one as though its carrier were reading the names carefully.

Wonderful.

It was a considerate desecrator.

After bobbing around for a while, disappearing a few times behind some of the larger headstones, the light stopped. Then, it dropped as whoever was carrying it set it down on the ground. The person started moving about, casting twisted, grotesque shadows around.

Got you, Arthur thought triumphantly. He abandoned his post by the tree and hurried to the first line of graves. As he made his way towards the poor, unfortunate soul who was about to be disturbed, he hid behind the larger memorials. He could hear a soft, repetitive shink as the metal scoop of the shovel was rammed into the earth.

Maybe Arthur should have brought a rolling pin or a crowbar with him, but it was too late to return to the car to dig around in the trunk for any kind of weapon now.

To get a better look at the guy, he crouched down and leaned around a miniature obelisk. The stone was freezing underneath his fingers, but the other fellow was only wearing jeans and a thin plaid button-up that flapped in the light breeze as he worked.

So he was a fashionable grave desecrator, too.

As quickly and quietly as he could, Arthur took a few photos of the scene with his phone before returning it to his back pocket.

The grave was only going to get deeper.

It was best if he dealt with this before it was big enough for another body.

Placing one foot in front of the other, he emerged from his hiding place and crept towards the criminal.

The guy was muttering under his breath.

"But no," he was saying. "We've got to commit criminal offenses, all because of a blasted-"

Since he was distracted, Arthur abandoned stealth and crossed the rest of the distance between them at a run.

The man never knew what hit him.

Dirt went flying.

Arthur used all four years of his high school wrestling experience to pin the weaselley man down.

When he caught sight of Arthur's face, however, he stopped struggling and gaped. "You!"

He hadn't a blasted clue who he was, but Arthur seized the opportunity to grab the shovel from him before he could be whacked over the face.

"What in the blue blazes are you doing?" he demanded, scrambling to his feet and pointing the shovel at him. He tried to think of where they might have met before and came up blank.

The stranger laughed (rather guiltily, in Arthur's opinion). "I have an explanation." He looked rather pale, like a ghost, and he kept sizing Arthur up and down as though there were no explanation and he was considering making a run for it. Or maybe he was wondering if he and Arthur were the same size and he could steal his clothes if he decided to murder him.

"What is it?"

"I… I haven't thought of it yet, hold on."

"That's wonderful. While you think of it, I'm going to haul your sorry backside over to the constable's office and collect my five hundred-pound reward."

The stranger's eyes went wide. "No! You can't do that!"

"Who's the one with the shovel here?"

"I can explain, Arthur-"

"Arthur?" How do you know my name?" Arthur narrowed his eyes. "Have you been stalking me?"

"Yes! No! Sort of! Not really!" Running a hand through his hair, the stranger turned away for a second before facing Arthur again. "Do you really not recognize me?"

"Should I recognize you?"

The other man's face crumpled.

Wonderful. Now Arthur was going to have a crying grave desecrator on his hands.

This wasn't worth five hundred quid.

"Sorry," the stranger apologized, running a hand across his eyes. "I just thought — after all these years-"

Before he could start pouring out his entire life story onto Arthur, Arthur cleared his throat. "You still haven't explained what you're doing here besides grave robbing."

"Grave robbing? I'm doing nothing of the sort."

"Really."

"You see, it's not grave robbing."

"Fine. Desecration, if you're being technical."

Merlin scowled at him. "You're still a prat at heart, I see."

Arthur didn't know what to do with that. "Have you been stalking me?" he demanded, his mind already going through the steps to get rid of this obvious madman. He could apply for a restraining order, but first, he needed evidence, and he didn't even know the other man's name.

"Yes. No - I mean no," the stranger quickly corrected himself. "No."

Gripping the shovel tighter, Arthur glared at him. "You're not being very convincing right now."

"Listen, Arthur - I - I heard it somewhere. Around."

He sounded like he was lying through his teeth.

"Do you really not remember me?"

He looked as though he were half a second away from rushing at Arthur.

Arthur ignored the question and used the shovel to point in the general direction of the town. "We're going to the constable's office. If you won't explain anything to me, you can explain it to a judge." And at least he couldn't disturb someone's remains while sitting in jail.

"No, you've got to listen to me. This is important. I'm not grave robbing."

"What are you doing, then?"

"This is my grave. So you could say I have a right."

Arthur squinted at it. In the dark, he couldn't make out the name on it, so keeping an eye on the desecrator, he picked up the discarded plastic camping lantern, which had survived their scuffle, and raised it until its light fell on the stone.

Colin Morgan

1811-1917

Beloved citizen

Well, "Colin Morgan" was also a beloved liar.

"This man died over a hundred years ago," Arthur pointed out, in case Colin hadn't seen the date. "You can't be him."

"It's my name," Colin insisted, "and I can prove it to you as soon as I finish digging."

Arthur did not want to stay in the graveyard any longer than what was needed. Colin was creepier than any ghosts or goblins that were lurking about — he had yet to take his eyes off Arthur, as though he were drinking in the very sight of him, like a vampire sucking up blood.

Despite his steady voice, the light of the lantern caught a glassy sheen in his eyes.

But he didn't seem like a lunatic even though looks could be deceiving and he was an obvious liar. He hadn't tried to run away or attack Arthur since he'd been caught, as though something arcane were keeping him there.

Some strange force was definitely keeping Arthur there because this was madness.

With his sleeve, Colin scrubbed his face.

Arthur was not going to deal with a crying criminal on his hands.

He sighed. "You'd better make this quick," he warned, "or I'm turning you in." Hesitantly, he held the shovel out to Colin.

"You won't regret this," Colin promised as he took it.

Arthur already did.

While he worked, Colin whistled.

Leaning up against an adjacent memorial, Arthur gritted his teeth. The sound was grating his nerves, and the longer he stood out there, the more his bones chilled.

He wasn't entirely sure this wasn't a hoax.

As he tossed shovelfuls of dirt off to the side, Colin sent him looks.

Arthur tried to rack his brain as to where he'd seen or would have met this man before, but he was drawing a blank. It was as though he'd been wearing a glove and taken it off, but the impression of the fabric was still clinging to his skin even though it wasn't there anymore.

"What's your real name?" he asked, checking his watch. Forty-five minutes were up.

"You don't know?"

It was as though the universe had decided to play a cruel joke on Arthur and was never going to clue him in on it.

"What letter does it start with?"

Merlin's shoulders sagged a little, but he kept on doggedly shoveling as though his life depended on it. "An m," he answered eventually.

"I didn't mean Morgan."

"It isn't that."

Arthur started running names through his mind. "Mark? Mason?"

"No," Colin grunted as the shovel got stuck in a stubborn clump of dirt and threw off his rhythm.

Arthur checked his phone again. There were seven minutes left, but Colin's hole wasn't that impressive. Certainly not grave-deep.

It was cold.

His stomach had long ago forgotten the takeout noodles.

He just wanted to go home.

"Listen-" he started.

The shovel hit metal.

As Colin knelt in the dirt, scrabbling at something with his bare hands, Arthur shrugged himself off the monument and walked to the edge of the hole.

Instead of the top of a casket, which would have been more reasonable, there was a metal chest the size of a small toolbox.

Colin looked up at Arthur.

Whatever.

"Have you read or watched the news lately?" Colin asked as he worked at un-encrusting the metal box.

"Of course. There are reports of a grave desecrator."

Colin rolled his eyes. "Not that. I meant the other news. The attacks."

Ah. Those. Arthur had read about what authorities thought was a rabid bear terrorizing the countryside. It sounded a little too much like vampires from Twilight for his comfort. It had been yet another thing Uther had been sore about, but he had assured Arthur that hunters in the area would take care of it.

They hadn't yet. Three people were dead.

Arthur had read their names and wondered why he hadn't done anything about it.

"What about them?" Arthur asked. "And what do they have to do with this?"

"I know how to stop them. The answer is in this box, which I buried for safekeeping. I couldn't remember which site I hid it at, though, so I had to go to all of them until I found the right one."

All of them?

How many graves did this guy own? Was he some sort of secret agent?

And why couldn't Arthur remember him?

This was turning into some sort of cheesy horror or spy flick.

After cleaning the last of the dirt from around the lock, Colin turned the box right side up on the grass next to the grave. His back to Arthur, he bent over. Under his breath, he muttered something.

A second later, the lock clicked open.

Raising the lantern, Arthur stood over Colin to get a better look at what was inside.

A book.

Colin had buried a book.

The cover was cracked and dirty, and it looked like it would fall apart if someone tried to open it.

"That's it?"

"Oh, thank goodness." Colin wiped his forehead with his shoulder. "I thought I might have had the wrong one again."

It was a book.

What was Colin going to do, throw it at the bear?

Looking up for a moment, Colin caught sight of the look on his face.

"Arthur," he asked, although it sounded more like begging to Arthur's ears, "do you trust me?"

He shouldn't have. Colin was a criminal.

But Arthur didn't feel wary or as consumed by "civil outrage." For some reason, he did trust Colin.

He wanted to know where they had met before. He wanted to know why Colin was there because he knew there was a reason, something Colin was holding back from sharing with him beyond the book, the bears, and the burials.

Arthur had never been the sort to believe in reincarnation, but he was on the edge of thinking they must have met each other in another life or something.

And he was going to remember. Even if Colin was a liar.

"What do I need to do?"

Internally, Merlin was screaming.

Arthur was sitting in the car right next to him, his eyebrows furrowed as he concentrated on navigating the bumpy back roads.

Two thousand years.

Two thousand blasted years, and his memory of Merlin was as blank as the day they had first met.

He didn't remember him.

At all.

And yet he was exactly the same - so much so that Merlin was clenching his teeth to keep himself from actually screaming.

Fate must have been laughing at him because first it had given him magic he couldn't use and now it had given him an Arthur he couldn't have.

The car bounced violently, and Arthur swore. "Blasted roads," he grumbled. "I'm going to break an axle."

The car sounded as though the axle were already broken, in Merlin's opinion, but he kept his mouth shut because Arthur was already in a mood.

"When do I turn?" Arthur asked.

"Not for a while. We have to get farther into the country."

According to the book, the monster, named a bookoo kookoo (Merlin had read it five times before he believed it), hunted and then returned to its den, the only place its creation could be undone with magic.

Merlin had known something was up the second a magical beast had reappeared in the world.

He just hadn't expected Arthur to return as well.

Nervously, he drummed his fingers on the car door.

It felt wrong, having to act like everything was all right when he had waited two thousand years for this.

"Do you mind?"

Right. Arthur hated little noises of impatience when he was trying to think.

"So what, exactly, are you planning on doing when we find this bear?" Arthur jerked the steering wheel to the side to avoid a pothole that the headlights had barely warned them about.

"It isn't a bear," Merlin answered as soon as he had unplastered himself from the door. If it had been a bear, it would have been easy to take care of. One sleeping spell or potion, and he could have transported it to somewhere safer. The world wasn't as open as it used to be.

"Then what in the world is it?"

Instead of replying, Merlin waited as Arthur eased on the brakes to cross an especially rough patch of road. Unhappily, the car lurched forward.

This would have been easier if they had been on horseback, he thought.

"It's a…" Merlin searched around for something that would work. He doubted Arthur would believe him if they were after some creature named bookoo kookoo. He'd probably kick Merlin out of the car.

Although that wasn't looking like such a terrible fate the longer they kept going…

"It's something like a bear."

Arthur snorted. "This had better be worth it," he warned. "My car is going to need a front-end alignment."

With Arthur's driving, they were going to need chiropractic alignments

While Arthur was busy trying to salvage his car, Merlin cracked open his book and scanned the spell once more. The words rolled across his mind and over the tip of his tongue, wanting to come out.

He shut the cover before he could do something stupid.

Magic was harder to hide than it used to be, and it wasn't happy about it.

"Marvin?"

"What?"

"Is your name Marvin?" Arthur asked.

Merlin snorted. "Do I look like a Marvin to you?"

"Melvin?"

"No."

The ride continued in silence, Arthur glowering at the road and Merlin rehearsing the spell in his mind. Every once in a while, Arthur tossed out a name, each more ridiculous than the last, but none of them were right.

Merlin wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him until his brain rattled around enough that he remembered.

All the gods hated him.

Through the window, Merlin peered into the darkness of the trees beside the road, looking for a sign that the bookoo kookoo was or had been in the area.

Eventually, he started spotting cracked thick tree branches and trampled bushes.

"Pull the car over."

Arthur frowned. "But there isn't any shoulder."

"Then leave it. No one's going to be out this far in the middle of the night."

"Except for us," Arthur muttered, easing the car to a stop, anyway.

Since it was heavy, Merlin left the book on the car seat but grabbed his lantern as he got out of the car. While he scanned the woods, Arthur went to the rear of the car, pulled the shovel from the backseat, and came around to Merlin's side.

Even though he wasn't going to need it, Merlin reached for it.

Arthur did not hand it over. "Let's go," he said.

"What?"

"Let's get on with it before that bear kills someone else." Arthur hefted the shovel over his shoulder.

If he thought he was coming with Merlin, he had another thing coming.

"You're staying here. This is dangerous, and you're not going to die a-" He caught himself.

Sharply, Arthur looked at him. "What was that?"

"You're not going to die a martyr. I can take care of this."

"I'm coming with you," Arthur insisted. "There's safety in numbers."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"You can't keep me in the car. The second you go off, I'll follow you."

Why did Arthur have to be so stubborn?

"If you get mauled by a bear, it isn't going to be my fault," Merlin hissed, all the while running through more spells in his head to protect Arthur.

It was too much like old times — tramping through the forest after some beast.

He needed to focus on the problem at hand. He could deal with the Arthurian problem later.

Instead of staying behind Merlin like any reasonable person would have done, Arthur pushed past him to take the lead, holding the shovel like it was a sword.

At least his back was turned to Merlin so he could use magic without him finding out if he needed to.

Despite Merlin's lantern, the forest was dark, and the tiny light only seemed to multiply the number of tree skeletons surrounding them. The breeze rattled the few remaining leaves on the trees.

Merlin didn't like it. The sound was just loud enough to make him question whether or not he was hearing something he shouldn't.

"Here, bear," Arthur whispered as he crept forward.

Merlin sniffed the air.

It smelled like some beast had passed there before them.

Or maybe that was just Arthur.

"Don't draw attention to us." He wanted to sneak up on the bookoo kookoo. Although the spell wasn't exactly long, it wasn't short, either, and he wanted all the time he could get so he could make sure he said it properly.

Then again, they sounded like a herd of elephants, trampling through the underbrush like they were, anyway.

Merlin kept spotting broken limbs but no bookoo kookoo. He didn't like it. To make sure it wasn't sneaking up on them, he peered over his shoulder.

"Gah!"

Merlin whirled back around.

Instead of being mauled by the bookoo kookoo, he was swatting the air around his head. "Get away from me!"

A spider web.

Merlin let Arthur deal with it by himself and moved around past him while he swore and made a fairly decent impression of an octopus at a disco bar.

"Blast it!"

"You can go back to the car," Merlin told him.

"Not on your life."

The ground was marred with log scratches and furrows, as though something had been burrowing around for something to eat.

There were too many marks — the bookoo kookoo had to be around there somewhere, and he hoped it was sleeping for the night.

"Colin or whatever your name is," Arthur hissed.

"Shut up," Merlin hissed back, bending down to inspect the ground.

"Look!"

Merlin jerked around.

Arthur was pointing the dirt-encrusted shovel high into the trees.

At first, Merlin couldn't see what on earth he was pointing at, but then, two eyes blinked into existence.

Ah.

So that was what a bookoo kookoo looked like.

Unlike its name, it was far from cute.

"That isn't a bear!"

"Nice bookoo kookoo," Merlin cooed, slowly walking forward.

Its den had to be close. If not, they were going to wind up dead or pretty close to it.

"When I say go," Merlin whispered out of the corner of his mouth, keeping an eye on the creature, "you make a run for it. I'll hold it off."

"You? I'm not leaving you alone."

"Just go!"

Before Arthur could make any more protest, Merlin shoved him off to the left and then turned to face the bookoo kookoo.

It was gone.

Shoot.

Turning in a wide circle, Merlin scanned all of the trees around him, but it was as though the bookoo kookoo had vanished into thin air, dissolved by the wind.

He swore.

For once in his life, Arthur had decided to listen to Merlin, which meant that he was out in the same woods as the monster without Merlin and without anything for protection besides a shovel.

Merlin cursed himself.

He should have never taken his eyes off Arthur.

He should have stayed with him.

He was never going to forgive himself if, after all these years of waiting, Arthur died right in front of him once more when he could have prevented it.

Forgetting everything, Merlin dove into the woods. "Arthur!" he yelled, hoping the sound would draw the bookoo kookoo away from Arthur and towards him. "Arthur!"

Although he couldn't find his friend, the putrid stench was growing stronger until Merlin was almost puking on the air he breathed.

Where in the blue blazes was Arthur? He couldn't have gotten very far without Merlin-

Without warning, the ground beneath Merlin disappeared, and he tumbled forward.

With an oof, he hit the ground. Spitting dead leaves out of his mouth, he scrambled to his feet.

He'd fallen right into the center of the bookoo kookoo's den tucked away in a rise created by a tree that had fallen over and decayed away.

Thank goodness. He'd been right.

Before the bookoo kookoo could make another appearance, he started chanting the spell.

It took less than thirty seconds to say, and when it worked, he felt the release of magic and the refuse in the den stir up a moment before settling.

Had it worked?

As he brushed the dirt off himself, he listened.

Somewhere off to the left, something roared, shaking what remaining leaves there were off the trees.

It hadn't.

He plunged in that direction.

Arthur did not know what the creature was, only that it was, as Colin had said, definitely not a bear.

It was hunting Arthur like a cat.

He could face it head-on, or he could turn and run and be mauled from behind.

At least Colin was out of the way, he thought, as he gripped the shovel tighter. He wouldn't be able to defend himself without any weapons.

Arthur would have given his left arm for something proper, like an actual sword.

The monster slinked across the ground towards him, its thin tail lashing back and forth, and its muscles coiling like a jaguar's.

He was fairly certain that it was playing with him, taking its time and enjoying his uncertainty.

It opened its mouth, revealing bright red gums and a mouth full of thick white teeth that would tear through human skin and skulls with little resistance.

Perfect for mauling with.

"Come on, then."

It roared.

At the stench that hit him, Arthur took a step backwards.

If it leaped at him, he would aim for its stomach and hope he hit it before its claws reached him.

It wasn't a very good plan, but it was the best he had without Colin and his magic book or whatever it was.

The creature tensed, its tail now coiling around its body.

Arthur prepared himself to swing the shovel with all of his might.

Before either of them could do anything, however, something crashed in the woods behind him.

Without thinking, he whirled around.

It was Colin.

Eyes flashing gold, he yelled something indistinguishable, and something above his head cracked.

Arthur looked up-

-just in time to see a tree branch falling before it crashed right into his face.

As though waking up from a terrible dream, Arthur started upwards.

"You need to lie still," Merlin told him, trying to push him back down and failing.

Goodness, his head hurt — as though his brain had been stuck in a freezer and was just now starting to unthaw. He wanted to go back to sleep for another thousand years.

He opened his eyes.

In front of him, the monster lay dead, a tree branch over its head and a shovel sticking out of the center of its body like a battle flag.

The shovel had been useful, after all, he thought triumphantly. He'd been right, and Merlin had been wrong.

"I got rid of its nest," Merlin said. "It shouldn't come back. You… er… you were hit on the head. The wind must have knocked the branch down. You've been out for a couple of hours."

Well, Arthur was right about another thing, too — Merlin was a fantastical liar, but if he thought he could pull the wool over Arthur's eyes for yet another time, he was flat-out wrong.

"You're a liar," he said, trying to sort through his foggy head. It felt like he was trying to swim upstream through a muddy river and could just make out what was going on around him.

Merlin let out a nervous laugh.

There were things in his mind that he had not thought of in years.

Things that did not fit with the way the world was now.

Things that both hurt him and made him want to heave in relief because it felt like returning to a home that he didn't remember leaving in the first place.

He was home.

"Merlin," he said, and Merlin nearly fell over himself in shock, "I remember."