Out of Time

AvalonReeseFanFics

A/N: Well, Happy New Year my wonderful readers! How was everyone's holidays? Mine was good, quiet, which was exactly what I prefer. I know this took me a long time to get to, but honestly my writer's block was horrendous last year. I'm hoping that it gets better if I force myself to write.

For this chapter, it's gonna be a shorter one y'all, but I just want you guys to see where Addison and Merlin are in the future. We're going to get into the meat and potatoes really soon.

I'm going to do my best to get you guys an update for next week.

Shoutouts: We're not doing shout outs just yet, because I've been gone for so long, I'll pick em up next week. – Official shout out to everyone and anyone who read, faved, followed or reviewed this story while I was on Hiatus… again. And to everyone who's been sticking with me despite all the long breaks I've been taking over the years - Y'all are the real MVPS!

Chapter 50: Out of Betterment

Addison stood there waiting for Isabella to catch up. She had literally just dropped another on her best friend. To be honest, she hadn't thought it would be this big of a shock, but it apparently was and now she was waiting for her reaction. She knew what was coming she was just waiting for it to drop.

"This is bullshit!" she hissed and Addison nodded. And there it was.

"Oh it's not a big deal, Izzy."

It really wasn't. Going back to school should not have been this big of a deal, but clearly it was to Isabella.

"How are you going to afford it?"

"Well, I have a bit saved up, you know, working over the summer, and Merlin's…"

"Ugh, this was his idea wasn't it?"

It was, but only because she had missed a lot of what Merlin had lived through and she wanted to catch up. Most of the problem was that they needed to find that Grail and he could only bring a research assistant on his expeditions. You know, on the University's dime. Getting her back into school, especially in the history track, would help her take that position. If she studied the same sort of history he did they'd have an excuse to spend time researching the location of the Grail.

Merlin was the one who hid it, he just wasn't certain it was still where it was supposed to be. It had been so long since he had hidden it that anyone could have found it by now.

"It was, and he's going to help me fund it…"

"Okay, but what about all of our plans?"

It was totally like Isabella to interrupt her, so Addison wasn't the least bit surprised.

"Just because I'm going to school doesn't mean I can't do spa days, or nail days, or shopping days or… girls' nights. It just means I can't do it all the time. I will have school during the day. And sometimes at night."

"This is bullshit," Isabella said again and Addison sighed. "Why do you even want to do this? You have never shown any interest in history before ever!"

"What are you talking about? I love the Museum," Addison cried but that just earned her a scowl from her best friend. "Look, I've been watching Merlin and looking over his course materials and it looks like fun you know?"

Merlin was a professor of History at the University of Cambridge, it was where she would be going. And she had been looking through his course material and it did look interesting. So she wasn't lying about that.

She just felt bad because she couldn't tell her best friend what she was really up to. Normally she didn't keep secrets from Isabella but she wasn't sure she could explain this.

"Cambridge is like super expensive. We're talking about ten thousand pounds… a year! What are you going to marry Merlin to get a discount?" She must have made a face for she immediately followed that question with: "Don't you fucking dare! No college education is worth it! Unless it's Oxford, in which case, yes, marry one of those blokes for a discount…"

And there was Isabella off on a different tangent.

Merlin and Addison had talked about it, briefly, about how it would make sense financially and logistically to marry. It would be a marriage of convenience of course, simply in title. It would give them the cover to stay together, and she would get a discount on tuition, but Addison couldn't bring herself to agree to that.

Stupidly, even across time itself, her heart still belonged to Arthur.

The man had been dead for thousands of years, she had been died thousands of years ago, and yet she still loved him.

How stupid was that?

"I know this is a lot, and it may seem like I'm changing a lot but… Izzy, I feel different," she found herself whispering. She felt so bad that she couldn't tell her friend the truth of the situation, she really, really did feel bad about it.

"Well… you went through something traumatic…"

"Yes, and I want to do something with my life. Maybe not something grand but… I like the idea of finding history, and… that's what I'd be doing with Merlin and… I mean… it's not that big of a change is it?"

Isabella took all of that in and then just nodded. "Alright, considering the alternatives… yeah, this isn't that big of a deal."

"Okay, so… we can calm down about it, now? Can we?" she asked. "Maybe get a little supportive?"

Isabella rolled her eyes. "Fine, yes I guess I can be supportive. But if you're going to be doing those telly interviews or going to be on a cover of a magazine you let me know and I'll do you up. Make my girl look presentable."

"Well… I'll mostly just be helping with lectures…"

"So I'll do you up for lectures, whatever. Close enough," she said with a shrug. "Just let me do your make up."

"Any time you want!"

The two girls hugged it out for a moment and for brief second Addison felt a little bit like her old self… before she met Arthur.

"I'm sorry I've been so bitchy… it's just… you were out for so long and they didn't know why you weren't waking up and… you're like my sister Addie, I was so scared I was gonna loose you. And… I mean… everything's so different and I blame Merlin…"

At that Addison laughed, oh of course she would. Poor Merlin getting the brunt of Isabella's anger.

"I should have told you about him, that's my fault," Addison lied. "I just… I thought I had time to warm you up to the idea…"

Isabella just sighed at her. "He's legit your type. To a tee. Tall, lanky and a nerd."

Dear lord if she had ever managed to meet Arthur she would have been so proud of Addison for branching away from her type.

"But if he turns into one of those loser nice-guy types, I'm allowed to say I told you so."

And that too was fair.

"I wouldn't expect anything less," Addison said with a nod of her head. "Would you like to do one of our spa days then? Or shopping? Maybe dinner?"

"How about we do all three?" Isabella countered with a large smile. "Since we don't know when we'll be able to do another one, you know once you get your busy schedule."

Addison wouldn't have expected anything less.

Addison didn't come back to the apartment until later that night. Merlin, who hadn't wanted to worry but had, pretended he wasn't overjoyed by her appearance again.

"How did it go?"

"Bout as good as we expected," Addison called. "Bought you a new scarf."

She had been doing that a lot recently. Buying him little things. In Camelot she would make them, but now that she was back in her time, she was buying them. Addison liked to give gifts, Merlin was starting to think that was her love language.

"Thanks," he said as she dropped the bag into his lap. It was a woolen scarf, navy blue, like all his others. It was just a chunky knit sweater type scarf. Good for blustery, windy days. "Did you get your nails done?"

Addison brandished a newly manicured hand at him as she sat down in the chair adjacent from him. "We agreed on doing all three of our favourite girls' day activities to make up for all the time we're going to be missing when I go to school full time."

Ah.

And that would be why she was gone for so long.

"Make sense. Did that calm her down a bit then?"

"Yes it did."

And that was all that mattered. Isabella was a big part of Addison's life, so her continued approval of him and her actions with him was important to her.

He had spread all his paperwork across the coffee table. He could have been doing this all on a laptop, Cambridge had issued him one, but he had never gotten used to using one. He liked the feel of the papers between his hands and it helped him to see where everything was. Tabs were great but it made things disappear in his mind sometimes.

He could use a computer if he wanted to, he was actually rather good at it, he just preferred the analog/paper way.

"What's all this?"

"Getting my syllabus ready," he said. "Picking all my readings and course books…"

"And all of this?" she asked pointing to a particular pile of old documents that looked like they should have been in the museum archive but were actually just from his own personal library.

"Uh… I made notes, half of them aren't legible," he muttered. And that was true, but that was mostly because the paper had gotten so old that it was starting to fall apart.

Addison gingerly picked up a page and gave it a quick glance over. "It's all faded," she whispered. "Definitely doesn't help when deciphering your chicken scratch."

Yep, all those years alive and he never did manage to learn how to write neater. His students often likened his term paper notes, which were all done by hand as that was how he preferred it, to the illegible shorthand of a doctor.

"Is this where you would have written down the location?"

She meant of the grail. "Yeah… well… maybe… I might have also figured I'd just remember and didn't write it down. I mean… It's just an extremely important artefact."

Except he had forgotten where it was.

Or more aptly, both he and Addison went to where he was sure he had hidden it and found that I was gone.

Either Ygraine was messing with him, and they had moved it for the quest, or someone else had found it and it was current bouncing around museums or sitting in someone's private collection.

"Well that's okay, we'll find it."

Yes, Merlin had no doubt, the question was when they'd find it.

He glanced at her, and not for the first time he saw that troubled look on her face. It was a look he knew altogether too well.

She was heartsick, poor girl. She was still mourning the loss of Arthur, and the bright future she had envisioned with him. He also knew that she was rather desperate to get a hold of this grail, like there was a time limit, though he knew that there wasn't.

She had asked, when he brought up getting a degree so he could justify hiring her as his assistant and taking her on digs with him, if they had the time for that.

Four years was a lot.

Not to an immortal.

She had remarked that she wasn't an immortal yet and that was fair. She wasn't yet, but she would be.

Once they found that grail, anyway.

"We have time," he found himself saying, though she hadn't said anything. "We'll find it, we have time to find it."

She glanced up at him, blinking her eyes at him. She gave him a bit of a small smile, but that troubled look didn't leave her face.

Merlin knew that her mind was still on Arthur, wondering what he was doing, how he was doing and if he was moving on without her. Merlin knew the answers, he just wasn't sure that Addison wanted to know. Not truly anyway.