A/N: Thank you SnidgetHex, GuestM, and Buckhunter for reviewing the last episode! Some questions from earlier will be answered now. ;)


Chapter 1

Gaius's bar was quiet save for the typical clink and thud of the pool table found at this time of day when only the Pendragon's Knights were hanging out in their unofficial headquarters. Lancelot brought a couple of birthday cards around for the gang to sign while Merlin addressed the envelopes. The Knights stayed in contact with kids they'd protected in the past and made sure they always got correspondence for important occasions, since many of them were missing parental figures for that kind of thing.

Once everyone had signed and written a small personal message, Lancelot brought the cards back over and Merlin stuffed them into their envelopes and applied some postage stamps.

"I'll go drop these at the post office," he said.

"I can do it," Lancelot replied. "My pump is running low on insulin and I have to go home to change the reservoir."

Merlin handed the cards over, and Lancelot headed out. The post office was on the way, and he took the cards in to drop them in the mail slot, then checked the gang's official PO Box while he was there. It was full of junk mail that he dumped in the recycle bin. On his way back out, he almost ran into a guy who'd just come in.

"That your bike outside?" the man asked.

"If it's the only one out there, yeah," Lancelot replied, quirking his brow at the stranger. He had lanky sandy hair and was wearing a button up shirt with only one middle button fastened.

"Someone just hit it in the parking lot and took off."

Lancelot stiffened and hurried past the guy and out to the lot. There was a brown van parked in the slot right next to where Lancelot had parked, so he couldn't see his bike. He quickened his pace as he anxiously crossed the lot and rounded the van to see how bad the damage was. He pulled up short when he found his bike standing upright just as he'd left it, not a scratch on it.

Confused, Lancelot started to turn to see where that random guy was. He got the barest glimpse of him right over his shoulder before something struck him in the back of the head and everything went dark.


Arthur was in the middle of a pool game with Leon when his phone rang. The caller ID was Lancelot's, so he set his stick down to answer it.

"Hey, what's up?"

"Arthur Pendragon," a voice that wasn't Lancelot spoke.

Arthur stiffened. "Who is this?"

"The guy you and your uncle cheated."

Arthur frowned. What…? "Sigan?" he asked incredulously.

"That's right, and I want my painting."

"Your painting?" Arthur repeated in disbelief. "It was destroyed, you saw."

"That was a fake," Sigan snarled. "You and Agravaine cheated me."

Arthur sputtered soundlessly. "I have no idea what you're talking about. How'd you get this phone? Where's Lancelot?"

"Your friend is right here, so don't lie to me. I recently learned that the very same painting is being sold to one Prince Rashid bin Mohammed Al Maktoum, and that he's coming to this town to purchase it. Explain how a destroyed painting can be sold now."

Arthur was getting a very bad feeling. "I don't know anything about that," he insisted. "If Agravaine switched the painting, I had nothing to do with it."

Arthur didn't say his uncle couldn't have switched it out with a fake, since it'd been in Arthur's possession the entire time after removing it from the family vault. And yet he wouldn't put it past his uncle to have found some way to cheat Sigan.

"Well," Sigan said, "then Agravaine does. And now it falls to you to get what's rightfully mine, or your friend will pay the price."

"I want to talk to Lancelot," Arthur demanded.

There was a moment of silence, then,

"Arthur?"

"Are you all right?"

Lancelot hesitated. "At the moment."

"See?" Sigan's voice returned a second later. "He's alive, and will stay that way as long as you get the painting back before it leaves the country. Oh, and don't call the cops. That would just make things unnecessarily messy."

With that, the call disconnected.

Arthur lowered his phone and stared at the screen with Lance's name as it went dark. The rest of the bar had fallen tensely quiet, the other Knights gathered around with concerned expressions.

"What's going on?" Merlin asked.

"Lancelot's been taken," Arthur said numbly.

"What?!"

"By who?" Gwaine demanded.

Arthur looked at Leon, then at the others. "His name's Sigan. He's someone my uncle has done business with. He claims Agravaine cheated him and thought I helped him. That's why he took Lance, as leverage for me to get back what's his."

Leon's brows furrowed. "I thought the painting was destroyed."

"It was. Or, I thought it was." Arthur shook his head and muttered, "Damn Agravaine."

"What are you talking about?" Elyan asked.

Arthur grimaced. He hadn't told the others about what had gone down with his uncle and the painting debacle.

"Leon can fill you in," he said, heading for the door. "I'm going to have a word with my uncle."

"What about Lancelot?" Merlin called after him.

"I'll fix it," Arthur promised.

He climbed on his bike and revved the throttle, the thunder of the engine echoing the mounting fury inside him. He was ready to explode by the time he reached the apartment complex Agravaine currently resided at. Marching upstairs, he banged his fist on his uncle's door.

It swung open a few seconds later.

"Arthur," Agravaine exclaimed, looking both surprised and irritated. "What on earth are you doing?"

Arthur pushed his way inside, sweeping his gaze around the room before spinning back to his uncle. "Sigan's back. And he's claiming you cheated him with that painting."

Agravaine rolled his eyes. "You were there, Arthur; what happened to the painting was a tragedy but outside my control."

"He says some foreigner is coming here to purchase it. But if it was blown up, either he's coming to buy a fake—or you tried to give a fake to Sigan. Which is it, Uncle?"

Agravaine scoffed. "You can't trust Sigan's word, Arthur."

"He's kidnapped one of my guys! So answer me truthfully. Do you have the real painting?"

Agravaine regarded Arthur for a long, taut moment, and in the end he neither confirmed nor denied it.

Arthur's mind was reeling. "So you tried to give Sigan a fake? How did you expect to get away with that? If those Russians hadn't shown up when they did and accidentally shot up the gas tank…" He trailed off as realization dawned. His uncle had always been conniving. "You planned it all, didn't you?" Arthur said. "You lured the Russians there just as we were to meet Sigan. And the car…were there explosives in it? Make it look like the Russians just happened to hit the gas tank?"

"That's quite an imaginative tale, Arthur," Agravaine said neutrally.

Arthur clenched his fists. "Give me the painting."

When his uncle didn't say anything, Arthur spun around and began tearing through the apartment.

"Arthur!" Agravaine yelled.

"Where is it?!" he demanded.

"It's not here."

Arthur whirled on him, grabbing him by the lapels of his business suit and shaking him. "Give it to me."

"I'm afraid I can't do that."

"I will beat it out of you if I have to," Arthur threatened. "Just consider it all the pent up payback for the years you beat on me."

"It's too late," Agravaine insisted. "I've promised it to an Arab prince, and these aren't people you go back on a deal with."

"But Sigan is? He has my friend hostage and will kill him if he doesn't get that painting back."

"That is regretful," Agravaine said. "But it's out of my hands."

Arthur shoved him away in disgust. "You used me. All this talk of wanting to reconcile, to have a second chance, you were just conning me like you conned Sigan."

"That's not true, Arthur," Agravaine denied. "I needed the money, and I couldn't ask you for it, lest you think I was just trying to use you. This was the only way to get back on my feet after I lost everything going to prison."

Arthur shook his head, furious. Any words about getting a legitimate job, about rebuilding from the ground up with honest work, meant nothing to his uncle. And appealing to the man's humanity would accomplish nothing either, because Agravaine didn't care about anyone but himself.

Arthur turned on his heel and stormed out. He went back to the bar where the others were waiting anxiously.

"Did he have it?" Leon asked.

"He wouldn't give it to me," Arthur said through gritted teeth.

"You told him about Lancelot, didn't you?" Merlin exclaimed.

"He doesn't care."

"Then how do we get him back?"

Gwaine put a hand on Merlin's arm to try to calm him.

"Are we going to call the police?" Leon asked.

Arthur shook his head. "Sigan said not to."

"Not like they can do anything," Gwaine put in. "We don't know where Sigan has Lancelot."

Merlin grasped fistfuls of his hair in frustration. "Lance was going home to refill his insulin pump. If Sigan grabbed him before he made it there…"

"He's going to be out of insulin soon," Elyan finished.

Everyone exchanged grim looks at that.

"We'll have to steal the painting back," Arthur declared.

"If we do that, Agravaine will know and that new buyer might come after you," Leon pointed out.

Arthur nodded. "Which means we'll have to make a swap, just like Agravaine did to Sigan." To him.

Because if it was a choice between his uncle and Lancelot, Arthur was choosing the latter.


Lancelot sat in an uncomfortable position on a concrete floor in some abandoned warehouse, his legs drawn in and ankles bound behind him. A rope attached them to his similarly tied wrists behind his back so that he couldn't move at all. He was only upright because he was able to lean against the cold wall.

His captor sat at a work bench several feet away, completely ignoring him. Lancelot was just here as leverage and nothing more.

His pump beeped three times, signaling the low reservoir alarm. It was set to go off when he was down to two hours of insulin left. Two hours was a long time…but was it long enough for Arthur to get what this guy wanted? Lancelot didn't know what was going on and could only make a few inferences from what he'd heard of his captor's side of the conversation. He wanted a painting, which he thought Arthur or his uncle had? But then there was some Middle Eastern name and mention of getting the painting before it left the country, which sounded like it complicated things. Lancelot didn't even know if Arthur could get what this guy wanted. And if he didn't…

Lancelot flicked a look at his captor and swallowed hard. He was running out of time in more ways than one.