Out of Time
AvalonReeseFanFics
A/N: Here we are Chapter 18. Isn't this getting exciting! Guys I'm not even close to being half way, but it already feels longer than what I originally had. I AM NEVER GIVING UP ON THIS FANFICTION! Don't ever let me! So guys, we have not cracked that 100th review yet, but we're literally only two away. So Whoever gets that 100th review gets a special prize, so don't forget to tell me what you think. I was told that the last chapter was a little too short so this one is a bit longer. So hopefully that's better.
Shoutouts to: yellowroseofthenw, NothingNooneZero, RandomFandoming, PeriAce, Crystal-Wolf-Guardain-967, IceSnowQueen, .Twitch, grapejuice101, Kylie Winchester, spider-lily08, Peterpan is life, Marshmallow monster02, and Allons-y New York.
Chapter 18: Out of Dedication
It had been a long and busy day for both Merlin and Lancelot. Merlin had used magic to forge a seal of nobility. Lancelot had not been comfortable lying to everyone, most of all Arthur but Merlin had talked him into it. Then Merlin took him to get armour from Gwen and her father. There had been a lot of flirting between the two of them and if Addison had been there she would have said something about shipping it. Merlin never knew why boats had anything to do with couples Addison found attractive together, but at this moment Merlin could see it. Gwen and Lancelot out on a boat kissing or something like that.
But all of that had lead to this. Merlin putting the armour on Lancelot, with Gwen beside him making sure all of the touches were done just right. Arthur was going through the line counting down the positions as his knights moved through them. Addison was at the end of the line, giggling as she went through the motions a real sword in her hand.
He got to five and Addison let out a loud battle cry, swung her sword with such might that it flew from her hands and then sailed towards Merlin who had the smarts to jump out of the way.
"Addison!" Arthur groaned coming to stand behind her.
Addison whirled around to him. "I couldn't help it!" she cried. "I have sweaty palms! It slipped out of my hands."
For good measure she wiped her hands down on Arthur's tunic. He caught both her wrists in his grip, the two of them sharing a soft moment staring into one another's eyes before Arthur's face hardened and he snarled: "You could have killed Merlin."
"Yeah!" Merlin called to her.
Addison shrugged. "Well, if I'm recalling correctly you don't seem to like Merlin all that much so I don't see what the problem is," she said with a sassy flip of her hair.
"OY!" Merlin shouted but was once again ignored.
"Just go stand with Gwen," he ordered and Addison groaned.
Still she rolled her eyes and whirled away being certain to cry: "You are no fun anymore Arthur Pendragon!"
"And you're going to be the death of me Addison Lee!" he cried back and then went back to the training
Addison walked over to them with a smile on her face. Her hand immediately went to Lancelot's hair one tendril curling around her finger. "Don't you look the part," she said with a soft purr to her voice. Lancelot cleared his throat and tried to sidestep her but Addison was hard to disengage.
"Doesn't he just?" Gwen asked grabbing a hold of Addison and pulling her off of Lancelot.
Arthur finished with the men, gave them a bit of a break and then approached Lancelot. Merlin pushed Lancelot forward and Arthur eyed him with a cold glare.
"And who are you?" he asked.
"I am Lancelot, Fifth son of Lord Eldrid of North Umbria," Lancelot answered quickly trying not to look or feel too guilty about all of this.
Arthur looked him up and down. "Lance… a lot?" he questioned dragging out his name. He turned to Addison and said: "Floppy hair? Merlin's friend is Floppy hair?"
Addison folded her arms over her chest and glared at Arthur. "Yes and so what? You promised me you'd give him a chance so you can't go back on your word now!"
Arthur turned back to Lancelot and sighed. "Do you have your seal?" he asked.
Lancelot presented Arthur the scroll Merlin had given him and bowed to him. "Aye," he said. Arthur smirked and slapped him so hard that Lancelot fell over.
"Arthur!" Addison cried but he held up a hand to stop any further protests from her.
"Sluggish reactions, on the battlefield you'd be dead by now. Come back when you're ready," Arthur snapped and then turned away.
Lancelot quickly got to his feet, and put a hand on his sword. "I'm ready now sire," he urged and Arthur turned back to him with a cocked eyebrow of surprise on his face.
"You are, are you?" he asked back, an amused smile on his face. Lancelot nodded. "Fine, you can start by cleaning out the stables," he ordered. He shot one last look at Addison who was beaming at him and he found himself smirking and shaking his head. "Come Addison, it's time to get you fed."
Arthur turned away and walked back to his knights who were chuckling and Lancelot turned back to where Gwen and Merlin were standing. Merlin gave him a thumbs up while Gwen smiled encouragingly.
As Addison walked past she stopped to whisper in his ear. "This is a good thing. The more he notices you the more likely he is to realize how good a knight you are," she said, her fingers tight against the arm of his tunic.
"ADDISON!" Arthur roared and Addison groaned.
"For the love of God calm your tits Arthur I'm coming!" she cried.
"For the last time, you are not to refer to my chest as... Womanly… uhm…"
"Bosoms, that is the word you're looking for Arthur, everyone present has either seen or heard the word before, except maybe Merlin," Addison finished for him.
"OY!" Merlin shouted putting his hands on his hips and glaring at her. The other knights were practically falling over they were laughing so hard, even Arthur was chuckling. Addison shook her head and glared at Arthur. "God you are such a little baby sometimes."
"I'm going to stop taking you out of your cell. See how much of a baby I am then," Arthur warned.
"You'll still be the biggest baby of them all," she shot back.
Though Lancelot was confused he still went back to Merlin. "Addison talks funny, is there a reason for that?"
Both Gwen and Merlin looked away, that would have to be a conversation for later.
Two days later, Lancelot had been used as nothing more than a servant. Cleaning out stables, sweeping the guard house, and now sharpening the other knight's swords. He was working on the last one when he caught the sight of something moving towards him. He turned and was quickly enough to catch the broom Arthur had tossed at him.
Arthur smiled as Lancelot caught the broom and got to his feet. "Not bad" he said. Lancelot noted that Addison was there too, she wore a red skirt with an unmatched blue tunic. Quite odd for Addison was often the best dressed lady on the field, which was even odder seeing as Lancelot had recently been informed she lived in the dungeons.
"Did you want me to sweep the guard house again, sire?" Lancelot asked.
"No, I have a different task for you," Arthur said.
"Sire?" Lancelot asked. At this point Arthur had taken the head off of a second broom and tossed it to Addison who caught it quickly and began to twirl it around quite masterfully.
"I want you to watch her," Arthur said.
Lancelot turned to Addison with surprise. Arthur wanted him to watch his ward? But why? He turned back to Arthur who was smirking at him. "Your opponents will come in all shapes and sizes. If you cannot keep up even the nimblest of girls how will you ever defeat someone like me?"
"But it wouldn't be fair," Lancelot said, taking the head off of his own broom. "She is not properly trained."
Arthur nodded. "Yes, I suppose that is true," he murmured and then pulled out a small pouch and threw it at Addison who quickly unwrapped it to reveal a single piece of sweet.
"There now it should be more even," Arthur said as Addison popped it into her mouth. "See if you can disarm her."
Lancelot shook his head, "I don't feel right fighting a woman," he said.
Addison had started bouncing, up and down her skirt flying up a few inches revealing the black boots she was wearing under her skirt. Odd choice of shoes. Though really Lancelot didn't know much about women and their choices of fashion.
"You're not going to hurt her, you're just going to knock the stick out of her hands," Arthur explained. "Do you think you can handle that."
Lancelot nodded and moved over to where Addison was twirling her wooden stick, he put a hand out to grab her wrist only to have that stick twirl a little too close to his face. He backed up to watch her do tricks with it, passing it from one hand to the other as it revolved in never ending circles. First in the front then to the back then above her head, then she went about twirling in a circle as the stick went side to side, like she was doing some stick whirling dance.
Lancelot shot a concerned glare at Arthur who was now leaning back and watching with a smug look on his face. Lancelot took his own stick in his hands and threw a timid strike at her, worried that he'd hurt her if he lashed out too hard. Addison parried quickly, with a jarring counter attack that left a surprisingly sharp pain vibrating up his arm.
A little peeved with this, Lancelot struck out again only to have Addison block him with an infuriating giggle. After that Lancelot did not try to go easy on her, but she blocked every single blow with an efficiency that surprised him. She had this smile on her face that angered Lancelot, like she thought this was all some game, a game that he was loosing at terribly.
Addison had not tried to strike Lancelot once during this exercise, she had merely blocked his blows and laughed while she did so. It was as if she moved to some unheard music and she were merely dancing and blocking him while she did so. The fact that she made this look like child's play to her just bruised Lancelot's ego.
He was getting tired but he had a stroke of luck, Addison stumbled over one of her twirling steps and it was all Lancelot needed to knock that stick out of her hand. The stick clattered to the stones and Lancelot stood there breathless as Addison stared at him with these wide blue eyes, as if noticing him for the first time, surprised that he had ended her game.
Arthur clapped, "Congratulations," he said with a smug grin. "It only took you 10 minutes to disarm a girl."
Lancelot scowled at him and Arthur smiled at him. Arthur had seen was he had seen, how would Arthur have stopped her without actually harming her then? Arthur just seemed pleased by all this, like he had played the world's greatest trick. "And you made basic training," he added and suddenly Lancelot was beaming as well.
He turned back to Addison and suddenly he wasn't smiling anymore. He had a look of suspicion on his face.
"Addison," he said slowly, offering her a hand, "Come here."
Lancelot turned and saw that Addison had a face cracking smile on her face, she was still bouncing from foot to foot, but instead of coming forward she took a few steps back. A look of fear crossed over Arthur's face.
"Addison, we're done playing," he said to her. "So don't…"
Arthur was interrupted by Addison ripping her skirt off and whipping it at his face with such ferocity that Lancelot could hear the snap of the fabric as it lashed across Arthur's cheek. Below her skirt were pants, a pair of tan breeches and black riding boots that must have been Arthur's cast offs.
"Tag you're it!" she cried and then dashed off disappearing into the crowd.
Arthur recovered from the shock of the hit, batting the fluttering blue fabric away. He scanned the crowd frantic to catch a glimpse of where Addison had gone or was heading.
"Did you see where she went?" Arthur asked Lancelot.
Lancelot half shrugged, starting to feel as frantic as Arthur. "Sort of, she went that way, but I can't see her through the crowd," he said.
"We have to find her before my father does. If he finds her first he'll punish her mercilessly!" Arthur cried, starting to push his way through the crowd, Lancelot followed after him, helping him to get people out of the way all while keeping a look out for a flash of blue tunic or a bit of that wild black hair.
They came to a stop at cross roads, both of them were scanning the crowd. Lancelot spotted her first, skipping her way up the hill that lead to the castle.
"Arthur! There," he said pointing after her.
Arthur turned and squinted, just barely catching sight of her as she turned the corner. "She's heading for the main court yard. You follow her I'm going to try to cut her off," he ordered.
Lancelot nodded and took off without waiting. Well, Addison certain was getting what she wanted. The game was now afoot.
Addison was rushing through the streets, hopping skipping jumping. Her energy knew no bounds. Taffy did all sorts of damage to her, it was much like an energy drink except ten times the amount of energy was going through her right now.
All she wanted was to feel the wind in her face, and since cars were not an option, running as fast as her short legs could take her would have to do.
"Addison wait!" she heard Lancelot cry but that didn't stop her.
Arthur slid to a stop in front of her, legs splayed wide, braced to stop her, his arms outstretched ready to catch her.
Addison dove, sliding low like she was sliding into home base right through his legs, tripping Arthur as she went. Arthur tumbled down and Lancelot, who had not slowed down crashed into him. Addison was up before the two boys could disentangle themselves, already skipping off.
"I'm so sorry sire!" Lancelot whispered breathlessly trying to help Arthur up.
Arthur merely slapped the hands away from him. "Just go after her will you!" he shouted. As Lancelot rushed off he could have sworn he heard Arthur mutter: "Never should have given her that stupid candy."
Addison wasn't planning on heading to the castle, but as soon as the screams hit the air and the bell started tolling she slid to a stop. The joyous energy crashed around her, she turned back to the main gates and saw that people were all streaming in, most of them were injured, carrying their lives on their backs. Addison pushed through the crowd to where Gaius was coming out of the doors to greet these people and get them some sort of assistance.
"Where can I help?" Addison asked.
Gaius opened his mouth to tell her that Merlin had gone to get supplies and that if she could possibly go get water to help quench thirsts or to help cleanse wounds but he never got a chance. Addison had been still for maybe three seconds when Lancelot came out of nowhere, emitting what could only be called a battle cry, and tackled her right off of her feet.
Gaius watched them go sprawling and he sighed and shook his head. He did not have time for this. He had people to attend to.
Lancelot stood up and helped Addison back up, being certain to keep a tight hold on her arm. Addison groaned. "That was completely unnecessary! I had stopped moving!" she cried, hitting his shoulder with her spare arm. The blow did literally no damage to him. Apparently she needed a twirling weapon in order to be effective.
Within seconds Arthur was beside them, he gripped Addison's other arm and then pulled her out of Lancelot's grasp. He glared down at her trying not to show just how out of breath he was. "What were you thinking?" he snapped.
"You were the one who gave me taffy and thought I'd be easy to control," she hissed back.
A bellowing cry of "Arthur!" echoed across the courtyard and they all turned to see Uther coming towards them. Lancelot scattered to the wind leaving Arthur and Addison behind. Arthur fought ever instinct clawing at him to step in front of Addison to protect her from his father.
He glared at the two of them, not happy about the situation, not happy about his son and heir cozying up to this strange future girl. He looked her up and down and when Arthur did the same he could see the issue. Addison was dressed as a man, something she had promised Uther she wouldn't ever do again. And on top of that her borrowed pants were ripped from thigh to just above her calf high boots. Arthur tried to supress his groan, damn it would be hard to explain this one.
"Did you get attacked?" Uther asked her in a dry tone.
Addison glanced around to the people who were lining up for care from Gaius or just finding somewhere half way decent to rest their weary bones and then down to her own dishevelled appearance before saying: "Yes. Yes I did."
"Interesting. So you were in Willowdale when the creature attacked? However did you get all the way there and back so quickly?" Uther asked.
Addison leant over to Arthur and whispered: "Is Willowdale far?"
"Yes," Arthur hissed back. He didn't know why he was doing this, his father could hear him and the unimpressed glare on his face spoke volumes of his impatience about this.
Addison straightened and narrowed her eyes at him. "Determination," she said with a stern nod of her head.
Uther rolled his eyes. "Get back to your cell," he ordered.
Addison took a half step behind Arthur. "Actually, it looks like Gaius could use some help so I was hoping that I could you know… do that?"
Uther glared at her. "Dressed like that?" he asked.
Addison nodded again. "Kay, change my clothes and then help, got it!" she cried and then ran off before Uther or Arthur could say anything about that.
Uther pinned his son with a glare so terrifying that Arthur didn't even try to say that he wanted to at least see Addison safely to her cell. "I swear she does that just to annoy me," Uther growled. "She knows full well that I wanted her in her cell and not out here where she can wreak havoc."
"Well maybe it would be good for her to help out," Arthur offered, they were heading towards the castle. Arthur had every intention of changing into his armour, to ride out and find this creature.
"It's the same as the other village. A creature with wings swooped down from the sky, took only the villagers, no livestock," Uther whispered as they got to the great doors.
Arthur winced. "I'd go out and hunt this thing down, but I can't track something through the air," he reminded his father.
"You don't have to track it, first Greensward now Willowdale. The creature's heading south, through the mouth of the valley…"
"To Camelot," Arthur finished for him.
Uther turned to him. "You must prepare your knights, Arthur."
Arthur nodded. "Have faith father, we'll be ready."
Not two days later, Lancelot was facing Arthur in his initiation. Moved up a whole week earlier, Lancelot had had no time to prepare. Well basically no time, he had gone through some maneuvers with Merlin but it wasn't really a fair fight. The pair had gone to Addison for help, which she very begrudgingly agreed to give only to have Arthur find them and learn that apparently going to Addison was cheating. Why she hadn't said that in the first place had been a surprise to all parties involved except for Addison who was all sorts of flustered about something she didn't feel comfortable talking about in front of Lancelot.
So that morning, the only people there to cheer Lancelot on had been Merlin and Gwen, Addison had been detained for the day in her cell. Lancelot assumed because Arthur didn't want her as a distraction, though Merlin knew it was because Arthur might have been a tad bit worried Addison would root for Lancelot instead of him.
The battle between Arthur and Lancelot lasted longer than the one with the previous candidate. Ending abruptly when Arthur dealt him one particularly hard blow and Lancelot not only lost his helmet but went down. Out for the count so it seemed. Gwen and Merlin were shocked completely, horrified, they had all thought that he could have beaten Arthur and passed this test.
Even Arthur looked surprised and a bit crestfallen. Apparently he had hoped that Lancelot would pass too. He had stooped over to grab the cloth from his waist, only to have Lancelot, who was faking his out-cold-ness take the feet out from under him in a very Addison-like move, where he then pointed his sword at Arthur and asked him if he'd submit.
Arthur had been furious, of course, not just because his pride was hurt, but because he was convinced Addison had told Lancelot that this moved had worked on him before when she demanded to take the one-minute sparring test against Arthur. His knights had pulled Lancelot away as Arthur got up, a fire in his eyes, but it all amounted to one thing.
Not an hour later Lancelot was knighted by Uther himself and though he was very suspicious in nature he seemed to buy all of Lancelot's lies about his parentage.
That night came the party where Lancelot and Arthur sat drinking together, both eyeing different companions. Arthur's eyes were first drawn to Morgana who did look particularly ravishing tonight, she had entered with Gwen. He had asked Lancelot if he thought Morgana to be beautiful, though he had not specified a name, if Arthur had noticed that Lancelot's eyes were only on Gwen as she moved to join Addison and Merlin he made no note of it, all he noticed was that Lancelot had agreed with him. It was what he was supposed to be thinking after all, but none could know that Arthur had his sights set on someone else.
It didn't take long for Arthur's eyes move to the one person he both wanted to see and didn't want to see. Addison had been acting strange, jumpy, as if she was expecting an imminent attack. It was part of that reason that he had told her not to come to Lancelot's testing that morning, and partly because he knew she wasn't sleeping and even more because he didn't want her rooting for Lancelot in fear that Arthur might accidently kill him out of a jealous spite. But there she was, standing on the other side of Merlin, guzzling hot mean as if she were drinking away her fears.
Though what it was she was afraid of she wouldn't tell Arthur about. He could see her speaking to Merlin though and that jealousy spiked up again. He wouldn't put it past her to be telling Merlin all about her fears.
Arthur had nothing to worry about. Across the room, however, a different kind of conversation was happening.
"I think our sir Lancelot might have eyes for you, Gwen," Merlin said with a cheeky grin.
Gwen tried to laugh off the nervousness that fluttered in her stomach. "Don't be silly," she said. Handsome knights like him barely took notice of lowly handmaidens and blacksmith's daughters like her. Even though she was certain they had a bit of a moment in her hut that morning when she had fitted him with armour and a proper sword.
"So, what if he did? Would that really be so bad?" Merlin asked. Maybe it was the alcohol talking but he totally wanted to give Lancelot even more luck that night, and if he could help Lancelot win the girl then he'd be more than even with the fledgling knight who saved his life.
Gwen sighed, prepared to lie, because she honestly didn't know what her feelings were and she didn't like that Merlin was pushing this so hard. "He's not really my type."
"Oh, there's a surprise," Merlin said not entirely buying it. "Sometimes, Guinevere, I wonder if you'd know what your type was if he was standing right next to you."
Gwen shot him some cut eye that Merlin failed to notice, but Addison did, though she said nothing about anything until Gwen said: "You're probably right," and she promptly snorted into her hot mead. Addison had started swaying on her feet, but neither of her companions had really noticed.
Merlin took another flagon of mead, just as Addison downed her last one in one massive chug and allowed her to take his new flagon out of his hands. He watched her start to drink in earnest, telling himself that he would ask her what the hell her problem was right after he asked Gwen one last question.
"So come on, just for the sake of argument, if you had to… Arthur or Lancelot?" he asked.
Gwen laughed. "But I don't have to and I never will," she said in a sing-song-y type voice just as Addison said: "OH! I know the answer to this. She chooses both!"
Gwen and Merlin turned to Addison with perplexed eyes as she stared back at them with bleary unfocused eyes. "That's right. She marries Arthur but has an affair with Lancelot. Pretty sure the two of them die over that… but I might be wrong. Been a long time since I've read Le Morte d'Arthur," she said with a slight slur to her voice.
Now Gwen and Merlin were staring at her as if she were crazy and if Merlin didn't know about Addison's past he would have thought she was crazy too. He quickly put a hand to Addison's shoulder to keep her from saying anymore. Arthur must have noticed the panicked look on Merlin's face for he materialized out of nowhere and took Addison away from Merlin.
"Don't worry," he said as he scooped the giggling and suddenly limp Addison up into his arms. "I'll deal with this."
He had a smile on his face that conveyed just how happy this made him, a smile that everyone had on their faces, whether it be from the mead or from the happiness of having someone they cared about near by. By morning almost everyone that attended the party was hung over, and Gaius was handing out tonics to those suffering from those early morning after alcohol pains, he even had one for Addison whom he had heard drank quite a bit to help her sleep the previous night.
But the happiness had ended at that party, and though the tonics burned they weren't the worst, that was yet to come. For Uther had asked Geoffrey of Monmouth, the court Genealogist, to look at Lancelot's seal and he had deemed it unworthy. Not seconds after Lancelot had finished drinking his tonic did the guards come to seize him, dragging him away for his haranguing.
This was definitely not how Merlin thought this morning would go.