A/N: Finally, I have written Chapter 7. It took me about 2 days, if not 3, to write. It was actually a bit more challenging to get out than the other chapters have been. It's very, very emotional. I hope I didn't overdo it, as I have a tendency to do. You'd think this would finally be over, but I just keep on dragging the angst out, stretching the torment.

(sigh) I need a life. I've had Arthur and Lancelot on the brain for the past few days. Too bad I don't live in their world instead of this one. Meh. Anyway. Remember: NO SLASH! And please – forgive me the typos.

Please Read and Review!! You give me a reason to live!!! I love you all, my beautiful, wonderful supporters!! You do so much, more than you know!! You make me smile and feel good. I really, really appreciate it. I hope my work is good enough for you....

Chapter 7

The world had suddenly become alive. Out of every door, the residents of Hadrian's Wall flooded out, and their shrieks of terror rang clear in the empty land. They swarmed around the knights, many young women wailing in anguish at the sight of both Lancelot and Galahad fallen. Arthur, however, didn't give them a chance to reach out. He got to his feet, Lancelot sagging against him weakly, and hurried through the crowd, back into the door from whence he came. Galahad heard nothing. His wide eyes were glazed. Gawain could only sit frozen in shock, his own eyes mimicking Galahad's. The faces around him were erased, the colors of their clothing mere blurs. Whatever idle words they buzzed, whatever melodramatic cries tore from the women, he could not hear them clearly. He was a dying star inside.

"Out of my way, out of my way," Bors exclaimed, pushing through the throng. Gawain's name was about to spring from his lips, when he finally reached the center of the circle and his voice was lost to him. Blood raged down Galahad's back, and Bors knew it was the lad only because he recognized the mops of curls as if they belonged to his own son. The burly knight had hardly looked so startled before. Gawain continued to stare blankly, having ceased to rock. The knife lay untouched at his side, staining the dirt beneath it. Scarlet was splayed in the circle's center as if a painter had stumbled, and not all of it belonged to Galahad. The Saxon corpse was finally noticed, as new screams marked. Bors broke out of his shock and fell beside Gawain.

"We have to get him to a healer, lad," he urged, further disturbed by Gawain's chilling expression. Gawain's eyes glinted, before he wordlessly turned his head to look at his comrade. The buzzing in his ears was growing louder, and Bors' pleading face was too close. He couldn't feel Galahad's weight against him. Even though he felt himself plunging into dark water, pulled abruptly away from the world, it was as if he was detached. That moment in which he stared at Bors seemed to last an eternity for him, but the bigger knight had already taken Galahad from his arms, wary that Gawain might throw a fit because of it. But Gawain was still. Bors' call unto him went unheard by the grounded knight. He only vaguely watched his comrade disappear into the crowd, headed for the archway where the Saxon had been, toward the healing ward. The faces were suddenly all leering at him.

"Guinevere," he shouted, Lancelot's limbs flailing as he struggled fast. The head of black curls lolled against his shoulder in unconsciousness, and Arthur was frantic in the swaying torchlights. The corridor was emptied again, only because the people were yet outside. He subconsciously hoped for Galahad, the anxiety of his situation teeming in his skin. "Guinevere." He was almost limping now, Lancelot's arms still strangely linked around his neck. He muttered, "Oh God," over and over, feeling as if the shadowed corridor was unending. He cried out to his lady once more, just as he stumbled and fell. Lancelot rolled out of his arms and lay sprawled out beside him, already too unconscious to wake. Guinevere hung out of her door in the next minute, her eyes widening and lips parting as she made toward her love. She knelt at his head, as he grabbed a fistful of Lancelot's tunic and looked to her.

"My God, he's dying," the Roman said, and she couldn't reply at once. She looked from him to Lancelot, and he struggled to his feet again, pulling his friend with him. Guinevere instinctively took her place at Lancelot's other side, and the two lovers dragged the Sarmatian's limp body back to his room. As they lowered him into the embrace of his bed, Lancelot started coughing again, though he failed to wake. Guinevere backed away, as Arthur went to his side and began to unhook his tunic at the neck, in the hopes it would aid him.

"What do you mean, he's dying?" she questioned, flustered.

"He's dying," Arthur said too loudly, frantic. "He's coughing up blood." He had taken a scrap of cloth from the table and hovered it over the knight's lips, the room filled with coughs. Lancelot's whole body seemed to quake, and Arthur put the cloth aside to pin his friend by the shoulders. Guinevere took the scrap in her delicate fingers, as he loomed over the Sarmatian. She gawked at the blood staining the cotton, eyes in the candlelight. Without so much as a quiet thud, the folded cloth fell to the stones, and she fled the room. Had Lancelot not been consuming all of Arthur's attention, the Roman might have questioned why she was leaving him.

"Oh, God," he said, not caring for his sin. "Please, Lancelot, don't do this." Tears were brimming in his eyes, and he knew it was no good. He shifted, reaching for the water skin at his belt, whilst his other hand firmly planted itself against Lancelot's breastbone. After pulling the cork out with his teeth, Arthur tipped it on Lancelot's lips, wincing when the knight choked on the water and spluttered, but Lancelot did manage to drink some. "Why is this happening?" he whispered, as Lancelot's coughs went muffled into the water.

Guinevere suddenly returned, flying through the burst open door, flask in hand. She nearly leapt on the bed but managed to skid to her knees beside Arthur. Throwing the cork aside carelessly, she urged Arthur to give it to the knight, which he did without question. The coughing had lessened but had not ceased completely. Blood ran from the corner of his mouth. Tipping Lancelot's head toward the bottle, Arthur helped his friend drink, and Guinevere watched wide-eyed, without telling him to stop before the flask was empty. As the coughing subsided and Arthur set the empty flask on the table, a heavy silence filled the room. Lancelot had grown almost disturbingly still, his body sinking into the bed as he exhaled, as if he were deflating.

"Do you think his lung is punctured?" Arthur asked her quietly, stilling fixed upon Lancelot.

"No," she said after a long pause. "I don't think he would have made it this long, if it was." Of course, both of them knew that possibility could not be known for certain. If it was true, all hope was lost. Lancelot would drown in his own water.

"God," Arthur said, looking into his lap. She looked to him inquisitively. "Galahad," he started and looked up to her. "He's been wounded." She flashed him a disbelieving expression. "I don't know what happened, but Gawain pulled a knife from his back." She gaped at him, words failing to escape her lips. He turned his gaze wearily to the stone wall across from him, fatigue apparent in the dark circles under his eyes, brought by stress instead of sleep deprivation. "What am I going to do?" he asked tiredly. "This is madness." She reached out and lay her hand on his arm.

"Do not lose hope," she murmured. "They need you now. We all do."

"And that need is heavy on my heart. I am not God. I can do nothing." He hung his head in defeat, exhaustion dangerously coursing through his limbs. In a moment, his shoulders were shaking, and Guinevere's face softened in compassion. She lay her hand between his shoulder blades, and Lancelot unexpectedly whispered his captain's name. Arthur lifted his gaze to his friend, as the Sarmatian's hand slid over the Roman's. Lancelot squeezed Arthur's hand with what strength he had left and looked upon his friend's tear-stained face with worn eyes.

"Where have you strayed, my friend, that you no longer have blind faith?" He gave a faint smile, and Arthur could not answer him. Lancelot gave a small cough toward the wall, and Arthur's eyes glimmered. "Forgive me," Lancelot said, once he had calmed and looked back to Arthur. "My strength wanes." He grimaced with another burst of coughing. "I don't know what it is inside, but it aches. That is all." Arthur's eyes squeezed in pain at his friend's words. The coughing returned, as bad as the first time, and it brought Arthur to sit behind Lancelot and take the knight in his arms. They encircled Lancelot's waist, while he held the knight close against his chest. Blood was sharply contrasting on the Sarmatian's unnaturally white face, and Arthur closed his eyes in cold agony that sliced clean up through his chest.

"Lancelot," he whimpered brokenly, his chest rising up into his friend's back. "Please." Guinevere's eyes gleamed in her contorted face. "Don't do this to me."

The Sarmatian took shallow breaths in rhythm with Arthur, but he soon started coughing again, choking. He was desperate for air, hungering for it like he had never had before, for anything. His lungs were tied up in strangling ribbons, refusing to take the precious air he was grabbing for. After a long moment of the fit, Lancelot gave out, falling into darkness as he doubled over. Arthur opened his eyes again, turning Lancelot to lie across his lap so that he could cradle his friend properly. Lancelot's head rested against his shoulder, and he began to weep, head bowed and body rocking.

"Lancelot," he whispered, his breath hot on the Sarmatian's drained skin. "Lancelot, please." And Guinevere realized that Lancelot had suddenly become small looking, curled in the arms of her lover. Watching Arthur, she didn't know what else to do for him or for Lancelot. They had cleansed and tended to the wound, and she had given him the Woad draught twice now. He did not seem to have an infection, but the arrow had been poisoned. If only Lancelot's body was stronger, better apt to fight it.

He had flung himself at his beautifully wilted flower, arms wildly wrapping around the shaking shoulders. He took the head of curls in his embrace and guided it to his breast, where he let the tears of awakening and fear flow into his tunic. In a sudden revival, the young knight was seized by a coughing fit not unlike Lancelot's, blood splattered everywhere, down his tunic and across Gawain's and gleaming on his lips. His struggle for air was in vain, as he felt merciless stabs of fury sear through his back and his chest, his heart still alive somehow and pounding against his ribs. He shook with coughing, his hands quaking and bloodstained in the air. Somehow, Gawain was hushing him and not in the grips of his former, horrified reverie. In the midst of the chaos, of the scarlet-clad knight and Bors shouting distantly at the flustered physician, Gawain was calm, as he had always been in times like this. He wasn't thinking. Galahad was convulsing against his heart.

"What the bloody hell are you waiting for?" Bors yelled anxiously at the healer, who was on his knees, fumbling for the tray of utensils he had dropped in his haste and nerves. Everything seemed like a frozen blur, an echo, but Gawain could hear none of it. His world was the body that lay trembling so perfectly in his arms, the curls that still smelled like the green wilds of this miserable island, the strange memory of a tapestry spread under his fingers and in his lap, in the firelight. His eyes lay closed as he rocked Galahad like the knight was his child and not his friend.

"Oh, don't go, Galahad," he whispered sweetly. "If you do, I must name my firstborn after you, and I must hurry to find a bride before my own life slips away." Galahad's eyes were wide, his face against Gawain's heart and his lips blustering with the copper river of his mortality. He could not stop the fit to answer his friend. He only stared blankly into space, into nothingness, and finally came to wonder what space was. So many empty spaces, he thought. Galahad closed his eyes. How wide the space was between here and home. How wide the space was – between the first day Gawain had looked at him and this hour of his death.

"Do you remember home?" Gawain murmured, a faint smile playing on his lips, his eyes yet shut. "It is a wide country of green hills, like this island," he imagined. "Only more beautiful, because it is ours." His fingers curled into Galahad's wild hair, moving back and forth like the ocean. His other hand lay in his brother's precious blood, never once shying away from the crimson. "And there, across the wide stretch of hills and mountains, our people dwell." His smile deepened, and he lay his cheek upon Galahad's curls. "And they are beautiful too. And somewhere in the mists, a bride waits for you, in her plain skirts and tangled hair, more lovely than any goddess."

Bors stood slightly gaping at his comrades, as the healer staggered to his feet, tray in hand. He wanted to say that Galahad needed to be tended to, that Gawain had to let go now. Yet as Galahad quieted, sporadic coughs coming in bigger intervals, Bors found he could not disturb Gawain's murmurs and daydreaming. He had no idea where this sudden composure had come from, but he suspected it was helping the younger knight. The noise had died down now, as he and the physician stood watching the knights. This was how it must be with Arthur and Lancelot, when the impulsive and wounded knight was locked away with his captain. Bors' eyes glimmered painfully. Dagonet's loss was still an open wound. He even ached for Tristan's death, but Dagonet, especially, was an indescribable pain. He had had thoughts of killing himself, the night his best friend had fallen. No, the whisper had come through his tears, you cannot follow yet. Even the menacing Bors had felt a ghost embrace that night, curled against a tree trunk, straining to feel that faint trace of Dagonet's chest beneath his weary head. He had understood, as he did now. He resolved to name his third bastard after Dagonet. He was beginning to wonder if that's why the gods had given him so many sons. Lancelot and Galahad could not die now, damn it.

"Excuse me, sir," the physician said, his accent marking the far, far North of the whole island. Gawain lifted his eyes open like a cat, and they gleamed widely at the physician with an undefined look. Galahad had grown still against his breast, breathing in audible gulps. Somehow, he wasn't drowning so much anymore. Gawain's heartbeat was the sound that guided him to linger just below the surface, where the light above was twilight ripples. A familiar cold crept into the depths of his limbs, but part of him was warm in Gawain's embrace, his legs drawn up against his friend's arm. Gawain was a fire that never went out. He sucked in a breath thinly, his lashes curled thickly against his cheeks.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "You were right. I am too impulsive." And Gawain would have grinned, if he had not been gazing fixedly on the healer, who had Bors flanking him. After a moment, Gawain gently took Galahad in one curled arm and lay him on the cot that he had been sitting on. The younger knight grimaced when his back touched the cloth, and his eyes were glazed in their heavenward stare at Gawain. Gawain's hands slid away from Galahad's body, stopping to rest on his forearm. They remained in their steady gaze for a minute longer, and Gawain decided to not notice the glistening crimson upon Galahad's form and the way it disappeared beyond his parted lips. It seemed as if they had something to say, but their eyes only shone in their constant beams. Gawain finally stood, his hand leaving Galahad's arm, and the healer took his place, as he backed away. Galahad was hidden from his sight, and he did not notice the way Bors eyed him.

We will go home, we will go home.

Ivory banners billowed in the wind and the glorious day, allowing only glimpses of the hills beyond and the gray skies. It would rain again, and the scent was on the air. Strange and smiling faces passed over him, like the last vision before death. Perhaps that's what it was. Perhaps he was going home. Their eyes were bright and filled with tender love. Did they dare love him? Did he love them in return? He could not remember. Somehow, he knew which ones were waiting and which ones were clinging. Who should he go to? He beheld the lady clad in gowns woven with the sea, like the beauty and darkness of evening. And beside her, slowly appearing, was someone with gentle gray eyes. The one who knew him best. He was smiling.

"Please," the Roman whimpered. "Please."

He passed by the gentle pair of eyes and walked out to the edge of the stone, where the wind moved in his charcoal tresses. His eyes sharpened in their gaze upon the open air, the wilds that were strangely beautiful. He remembered the hatred of it faintly. Yet he could not hate it now. Now, it was something new. It was home. It was a place he had never known. He could feel the gray eyes touching his back like butterfly fingertips and the scarlet cloak cupping in the wind. He could feel the hands moving over his shoulders and cupping over their curves. He knew he was smirking again.

"Lancelot," the captain cried quietly into the black curls. She watched him with brimming eyes. He had come undone. His rocking did not soothe the pain. Not even she could soothe it.

"Are you going to hold on forever?" he murmured into the wind, warmth spreading down into his limbs from where the familiar hands lay upon him. The lonely music of the hills filled his soul, and his curls were swaying again. He lowered his eyes when he went unanswered. "Tell me if your heart is true." The wildflowers danced in the breeze. "Tell me if I am more than rose." Petals fell one by one, a velvet circle around the base.

"Lancelot," the Roman mewled, weeping broken-hearted, as he had never done before. He held the knight in desperate beauty, in a despair that she had never known existed. Her tears were already prints in the snow of her face. He stripped her of the warrior skin and left her only a woman. His face lay against the knight's fevered brow, hiding the flushed face in his shadows. His supplication was lost on deaf ears, it seemed. Oh, if only you could hear me, he thought. The Roman felt as if he could never let go of the burning limbs, lest he crumble and fall to the earth as pieces that were no different than the ashes of a friend. Why could he not reach the knight? No matter how he pressed against the body, no matter how close he held him, the Sarmatian was just beyond his fingertips. Why could he not melt into Lancelot? Why could he not reach him?

"If only you could hear me," he whispered to the unconscious knight, his soundless tears disappearing into the curls, into the darkness. With eyes shut, he did not realize he had said the words. Her face was a disturbed expression. And suddenly, he began to rock again. He suppressed the gasping breaths and the rising sobs. He ignored the pain in his throat and his chest and his every thread. He stopped feeling that tears, regardless of the fact that they yet rolled down the curves of his face. He had let go of himself to fall back into the water, into the murky water where the knight floated, motionless. The Roman began to hum.

We will go home, we will go home.

Galahad did not voice the tingling pain that ached in his whole back. He lay still on his stomach, eyes open at empty space, and the world was silent. The physician had moved, but Gawain was gone. Bors sat vigilantly near his head, watching the healer work and making sure the young knight fared well. Ever so often, Galahad would break into coughs and more blood would stain the cot, collecting in a one large petal. His eyes were still glazed. Some might have suspected it was because he lingered on the threshold of pain. Others might have thought it was the pain. It was neither. His apology had gone unacknowledged. Gawain was gone. Finally, the tears leaked out.

Lancelot needed to believe that Arthur loved him more than just three words. He needed to believe that the Roman would love him if he rode to Sarmatia and not stop in his absence. He needed to know that he could never be replaced, by another knight or by a woman. He needed to know that his death would not be the end of Arthur or the end of Arthur's love for him. He looked into the wind and the skies, to where the wildflowers rustled, and his flesh rose up into Arthur's hands and pulled the Roman in.

"What's wrong, lad?" Bors asked Galahad gently, noticing the tears. "Is the pain too much?" He almost regretted asking this question, knowing if Galahad were in a right condition, the younger knight would have his head for asking such a question. But Galahad did no such thing now. He lay still, weeping, as the healer finished his work. His grip on the cot's edges gradually loosened, his knuckles growing pink again, after the bold white pain had turned them faded. His back gleamed in the dim light, an ugly gash now stitched below his shoulder blade. Another ripped tunic.

"I'll have Vanora make you a new one, lad," Bors said, touching one of the torn edges softly. He did not persist in asking Galahad why tears had come, since the other knight had not answered him the first time. Sympathy shone strangely the eyes of the great warrior, and he ruffled Galahad's curls, before turning to go. As the healer straightened and wiped his hands down the front of his apron, Bors leaned in to mutter a warning that Galahad was to be watched over. The anxious man only gave a short nod, and Bors left with one final glance back at Galahad.

"Lancelot," Arthur cooed, half-whimpering, begging into the Sarmatian's eyes. Lancelot had awoken, and Guinevere had given a start toward him in eager surprise.

The Sarmatian's eyes gleamed up into those gentle gray, as he panted for breath, with blood tainting his handsome face. She would later swear that she could have reached out to touch the love between them, in that moment. The image, the way they looked at each other, was forever etched into her mind. It was the image that came to her in the hour of Arthur's death and on the day of Lancelot's funeral, the image that carried her through every war and tragedy of her life yet to come. Their love, so desperate and wounded, sliced open before her eyes, was gleaming with fever and death and heaven's countless tears. Their bodies seemed to be made into each other's, their limbs fitting together like nature. The way Arthur held Lancelot, the way Lancelot in Arthur's embrace, was the manifestation of divinity to her. She later realized, after longer years bestowed wisdom upon her, why Lancelot had begun to cry.

"Lancelot," Arthur choked, pain springing out of his eyes like new creatures.

His hand returned to its proper place, hovering near the Sarmatian's brow. His fingers stroked at the knight's curls with agony and love entwined around them. A hitching breath flitted through his lips, steady floods coming from his gray pools. He was shaking again, shaking with humanity that embodied him, destroyed him, and sustained him. She wanted nothing more in that moment than to put her arms around those quaking shoulders and still them – nothing more, except to give Lancelot unto him, whole and immortal. Oh, if only they could live forever. If only they could die together.

"Please tell me the truth," Lancelot whispered, his head bobbing against his heaving chest. His eyes glittered, two pieces of the darkest evening sky, and she was weeping like the first time she had ever cried as a little girl and knew the reason she did. She hated doing it. She had trained herself not to. She had resisted those sort of tears since that first time, when her warrior father told her that she had to be strong. Suddenly, these two men pulled her composure out from under her, and she was left devastatingly vulnerable. She wished she could look heavenward and plead with the goddess through gritted teeth to give Lancelot his life. He couldn't be taken away from the Roman. Not now. Not yet. Never.

"Please tell me the truth," Lancelot repeated, his eyes squinting with burning tears. The room was slashed like a tapestry, with the blades of their gasping breath. "Please tell me you love me without any chains," the Sarmatian said, and Arthur's eyes glimmered as he tilted his head. "I need to know," Lancelot sobbed. "I need to know that it's all right to die. I need to know that I can go home and still have your love." His fingers had curled into Arthur's arm, clutching the sleeve tightly. His breath came in quick, labored heaves, blood shining from his lips.

"Oh, Lancelot," Arthur whispered, crying, crying like he didn't have to be strong. His hand drifted down from the knight's curls and his fingers graced the wet blood as if it was glass. His hand fit over Lancelot's jaw and cheek perfectly, and he stroked the knight's lower lip with his thumb, as if trying to cleanse it of the scarlet.

"You can die," he breathed hoarsely, a thick tear brimming in each eye. "You can go home." His eyes began to close again but never finished, only tried to squeeze the tears back in vain. "I will let you go." His thumb ran back and forth, back and forth over Lancelot's lip. The Sarmatian watched his best friend in devastation. "You're free," Arthur said meekly, a painful smile twitching briefly on his lips.

"But I will love you," Arthur said, killing himself. "I will love you, always. Until my dying beat, until the breath leaves my body, I will love you. You're my brother." And his hand caressed Lancelot's curls affectionately, nostalgic and almost afraid. His own lips were quivering, and he could feel his chest splitting apart inside.

Galahad finally squeezed the cot edges again, his eyes mimicking his fists. Tears were thick and heavy in his eyes and they rolled down his cheeks from his those eyes. He sobbed and inhaled sharply, trembling as if about the break. "Gawain," he whimpered, breaking his silence. "Gawain."