The sun was hot on Gwaine's back as he chopped more wood for Tara. If only she could use the heat from the sun to cook, he thought bitterly.

Since word was that the dragon had left, defeated and Camelot had been rebuilding, Gwaine considered going to the city, even for a day, to see if she was alright. For months he had considered the idea, and for months he had done nothing about it. Krysia had not returned, and he feared that she was lost forever.

The axe slipped from his sweat-slicked fingers, and he let it fall to his feet, sticking in the hard ground. Gwaine inhaled deeply the afternoon air and its dust. The barman had been working less and less, his health retreating from him almost daily. Tara didn't let her smile fall, but Gwaine had known her long enough to know she was preparing for the worst.

He startled at the sound of a cry, and then he stuck the axe in the wood and hurried inside and upstairs. Tara was at her husband's bedside, trying to wake him. Her hands were shaking.

"Tara," he said softly.

"He won't get up," she said, still shaking him. "He hasn't had his breakfast yet. He won't wake."

Gwaine stood in the doorway, staring, wishing he had better news. When she began to shake more fervently, he stepped forward and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. She froze at his touch, her whole body going stiff.

"You go wash up from the mid-day rush," he said softly. "I'll take care of him."

He wasn't sure she would let him take her husband out to bury, but after a long pause, she stood, brushed her skirts, and told him she'd need the wood before the sun crept down again, as though her husband wasn't dead in the bed beside them.

"I'll take care of it," he said.

/-/

Leon sat with Arthur and reviewed the maps for the hundredth time. They'd had whispers, rumors, and phantoms, but nothing that suggested it might be Morgana had panned out to be anything more substantive thus far. Every light in the dark was an illusion, half-wished into being.

"We will find her," Leon said when Arthur tossed down a map on the growing stack.

"But will she be alive when we do?" Arthur said.

Leon stared at Arthur, who sat back and stared up at the ceiling. Arthur might not recall, as they had both been young at the time, but he remembered when his father died, missing for months and then only his corpse found when the trail seemed all but lost. The waiting and hoping had been agony. The funeral was a relief. But that seemed the wrong thing to say to Arthur at this time.

Uther had retreated back into himself, and he asked Krysia to return to the villages, as she hadn't had time to complete her mission before hurrying back to be of service when the dragon attacked. Leon had not argued, had saddled Ember for her, had watched her ride away, but part of him wondered if the whole thing was not futile. But it eased the king's mind.

"I feel that east is still the right place to look," Arthur finally said, leaning back over his maps. "The forests provide a great over to someone leaving Camelot."

"True, sire," Leon said, "although we know that Morgause previously utilized Idirsholas—"

"And there is no reason for her to return there," Arthur said. "She already used the knights and failed at her task. She will try a different method next time."

The silence between them stretched out, long and unpleasant. Leon knew it was likely that Morgause would look for another method to attack, to kill the king, but she had come so close the first time that it didn't bear thinking of, how close she might come again.

/-/

Gwaine was exhausted that night, laying in his bed, trying not to notice his sore muscles. Between the wood and the burial, he'd done more work with his arms than he could recall for some time. He might fall asleep without fully undressing, he was so exhausted. He considered sleeping through the morning meal and waking when he woke.

He almost missed the timid knock at his door over the rain. Strange that when the innkeeper died, the sun was bright and clear, and now the wind and rain howled outside. He grunted that the comer could enter, but he wasn't prepared. When the door swung open, he sat up, staring.

Krysia stood there, looking uncertain, soaked to the bone, staring at him. He almost asked if she was real, but he caught himself and scrambled out of bed, ushering her to come in.

"I thought you might be sleeping," she said. "The innkeeper's wife mentioned that you'd had a long day."

"It's fine," he said. "It was nothing. You must be freezing."

"Why?" she said.

He couldn't hold in his incredulous laugh.

"You're soaking wet," he said

She looked down and hummed as if she hadn't noticed. Gwaine looked around in vain for a solution for her, and he grabbed his shirt from the nearby chair.

"Here," he said. "You'll catch ill."

She was starting to protest, but he was already turning around, trying not to think about the sounds of her undressing, or that she was putting on his shirt. It wouldn't do for her to realize just how enticing this was. When she walked around him into view and laid out her clothes to dry, his eyes were drawn to the long curve of her leg, and his fingers twitched. Gods, but he wanted to kiss from her heel all the way up to her hip.

"My hair will take a while to dry, anyway," she said.

Gwaine hummed. He pulled a blanket off the bed and carefully wrapped it around her, pulling her hair out of the blanket and letting it fall around her shoulders. She just smiled up at him, amused.

"What?" he said.

"I just didn't expect it," she said.

"Didn't expect what?"

"For you to be so…gentle," she said. "Attentive. It's nice."

There was a roll of thunder in the distance, and she turned, frowning at the window. It was quite late in the year for such weather, but Gwaine struggled to think of something intelligent to say about it. He was fighting his every instinct to toss the blanket back off her shoulders and pull her into kisses.

Instead, he sat on the edge of the bed and stared up at her, still half-marveling that she was standing in his room, in his shirt, in his blanket, when that morning he thought it very possible that she was dead.

"So you weren't killed by a dragon," he said.

She smiled, and again, he ached to kiss her. But it couldn't be a good idea right now. He was already swimming in temptation.

She hummed, and he was surprised when she leaned over him and pressed her lips to his. He couldn't feel his hands, but he knew he must be pulling her closer by the movement of his arm, which definitely had a mind of its own. He deepened the kiss before he could stop himself, and when she traced a few hesitant fingers along the line of his collarbone, he sighed into the kiss.

When a startling clap of thunder, much closer than previous rumblings, sounded nearby, he startled out of the kiss, and he tried not to listen to her disappointed sigh. This was a bad idea.

"Krysia," he whispered, "as much as I…would…" He cleared his throat and started over. "I've had a long day, and I don't trust myself as much as I'd like to right now."

"I understand," she said. "Let's just…talk? I've missed you."

He hadn't realized how nervous he was until the relief set in. They sat together on his bed, curled up in blankets, watching the thunderstorm through the window as she told him about what a dragon looks like up close, and he filled her in on the death of the innkeeper.

When her exhaustion set in, Gwaine considered moving to the floor to give her space to sleep. Her clothes weren't yet dry, or he'd have carried her to her own room. But he knew it was a cold night, and perhaps it was a thin excuse, but instead of leaving the bed, he stretched out beside her and watched her sleep until he couldn't keep open his eyes any longer.

/-/

Uther watched the lightning from his bedroom window and startled when the door opened. Clay, not Krysia, and Uther was confused for a moment before he recalled that he'd sent her back out to find information about Morgana.

"A fire, sire?" Clay said.

"Yes, of course," Uther said, turning away as the man did his work.

Morgana's absence had stirred up a great number of thoughts, memories, and layers of guilt that he had long forgotten, things he had not thought of for some time. Before Gorlois's death and all that came with that, Gorlois had been meant to go back to look in on another bastard child of Uther's, and one Uther had never met. Uther wondered, as he had not wondered for more than twenty years, what had become of that child.

Dead, probably.

According to Gorlois's reports, the mother had few resources, and the child was very young. It was possible the child did not survive. What sort of man did that make him, not thinking of the child for so many years, not wondering? He didn't even know the child's name. He wasn't sure he remembered the name of the mother, it was so long ago, such a brief moment.

Vivienne he had known well, although he wouldn't have precisely called them friends. The affair had been a mistake, and a brief moment of weakness, but not one he could forget or ignore. He wished now that he'd taken as much of an interest in the boy as Gorlois had, that he'd bothered to search out his bastard son.

But he wished a lot of things had been different, could have been different. A not insignificant part of him wished he'd never fathered the bastard child in the first place. But it was impossible to feel that way about Morgana. She was part of his soul.

He turned to ask Clay if he knew the state of repairs to the castle in some of the more damaged wings, but when he turned around, the man was already gone.

/-/

Krysia woke to kisses, and she hummed, stretching. A hand went to her waist, and she slowly opened her eyes, smiling at Gwaine, who seemed to have forgotten some of his shyness from the night before. Never mind that she was still wearing only his shirt, or that they'd spent the night in the same bed. He slid closer to her, the warmth of him especially delicious for how cool the morning was.

"Good morning, lovely," he whispered against her jaw.

She blinked at how bright the sun already was, then kissed him again. He groaned into the kiss, and his hand began to trace slowly up her side. He suddenly froze, pulling back from the kiss.

"This isn't an insult," he said, "but…I don't imagine you want to…that you're ready for…."

There it was again, the shyness. Krysia felt her own cheeks going hot as his turned a bit pink. While her dreams had given her a taste, and she knew that at some point, she would very much enjoy whatever his mind was already racing through, she didn't feel that this was the time or place.

"No," she said.

"Then I think we should probably stop," he said, his voice tight. "Because I already really don't want to stop, and we've barely…."

She agreed, and she climbed out of the bed and tested her clothes. Still a bit damp, but not terrible. She turned around to ask Gwaine if he could see about breakfast so she could have the privacy to dry them with magic, and he was staring at her legs with a look of longing she'd seen before on the face of a hungry dog. She wondered what he was imagining, and she wished for a moment that she'd not said no, but she knew it was the right thing, ultimately.

"I suppose we'll have a warm breakfast, at least," she said.

"Yes," Gwaine said, forcing a smile and looking up at her eyes again. "Yes. I'll see if there's anything ready now, lovely."

She thanked him, watched him leave, and when the door closed, she took a moment to shudder from something other that cold before she dried her clothes with a single breath and a touch of her hand.

/-/

Leon watched Geraint ready the men for another scouting party to search for the Lady Morgana with a bit of confusion. While Arthur had never expressly said that Leon would lead the party, it was implied based on their shifts. He was not upset, but he was confused, as no one had mentioned to him the reason for the change.

Geraint noticed Leon watching, and he gave a small smile before crossing the armory and motioning for Leon to follow him.

"Don't look so hurt," Geraint said.

"Do I look hurt?" Leon said.

"I asked Arthur to switch us. Told him I was dying of boredom, and I thought you might do for a rest. You've been pulling long shifts even when you aren't working."

"I always do that."

Geraint made an irritated sound in his throat and retrieved his sword from its perch. He gave it a swing and checked the edges of the blade.

"If you led this patrol," Geraint whispered, "you wouldn't be here when she came back. I wasn't going to take that from you, especially if you persist on that being all you ever have."

Leon stared at his friend, wondering if he should feel offended or belittled or teased. Perhaps Geraint was growing up, or perhaps Leon was immune to the teasing, but he just felt relieved.

/-/

Krysia crossed the council floor in surprisingly confident strides, and Uther stared at her certain for a moment that she was the ghost of Zosia. The stride, the set of her shoulders, the shade her hair was when it was wet…

"Unfortunately, sire," she said, "I have no news to report. If there are people in Camelot with news of the Lady Morgana, they are either far away or in a different direction."

It took Uther a moment to process what Krysia had said. When his brain caught up, he nodded and said, "Very well. You must be freezing. I won't detain you longer. If there is more news, you can tell me when you've had a rest and a hot meal."

She bowed her head, and Uther fought the urge to call Geoffrey then and there. Because what if his fears were right? He'd already lost Morgana, maybe forever. He was too old to lose so many people at once again.

/-/

Gwaine thought the stew was a bit chewier than usual, but he gnawed his way through it, watching Tara clean the dishes from the evening meal. It had only been a few days, but Gwaine already thought she looked thinner than before. Perhaps it was the light.

"I've written to his daughter," Tara said suddenly.

"Oh?"

Gwaine hadn't known the innkeeper had had a daughter, but he supposed men did. He thought Tara had mentioned something about him having been married before, a very kindly woman who died in childbirth, as women sometimes did.

"Yes, Mary. He would have wanted her to have this place."

Gwaine sat back, startled.

"Where will you go?" he said.

"My sister has a place in a little village in Mercia," she said.

He hadn't known she's had a sister, so he hummed. He wondered what might become of his arrangement when Mary arrived.

"I've told her about you," Tara said, scrubbing a pot vigorously. "She's a suspicious sort, and proud. She will keep you on for a while, I expect, to honor the agreement, but I don't know that it will be the most comfortable arrangement for either of you over time. Do you have anywhere you could go?"

Gwaine thought of Krysia, Camelot, and the possibility of following her there.

"Maybe," he said. "But I…don't know about the timing."

Tara gave him a sad smile and set down the pot, giving him her full attention. Gwaine set down his stew, trained from childhood by his mother than when a women suddenly gives you her full attention, you'd better listen to what she's about to say.

"You list, Gwaine," she said. "That woman who keeps coming to see you, you'd better tell her how you feel and tell her soon."

"She knows how I feel," Gwaine said."

"Hmm," Tara said, narrowing her eyes. "Don't assume. It's important to show a woman that she's valued. She may get tired of waiting on you and marry someone else. She's pretty and young, but she's already childbearing age. A woman won't wait forever."

Gwaine felt his face go hot, and he decided it was important to pay attention to his stew. The mention of children reminded him of waking up beside her, feeling her body against his in a bed, and all the dreams of being even closer….

"The time isn't right," he said.

Tara clicked her tongue and said, "When you get to my age, you know that the time is never right. Every minute you let slide away for not being the right time is a minute you didn't spend as her husband. Life is too short."

He looked up again and smiled at her weakly.

"Thank you," she said.

He squeezed her hand gently, and then returned to gnawing his stew.

A/N:

Y'all, brace for season three next chapter! So excited to share with y'all. Season three is my favorite for a lot of reasons, and we have so much to look forward to here. Lots of plots taking shape.

-C