There's no need to fear. Cause I am here!
Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin or Bones.
Angela and Hodgins walked into the hallway that led from the enormous lab and branched off into smaller ones, leaving behind them their friends and the excitement of the greatest discovery of their lives, and for what? To find an old, confused, British man.
"Where should we look first?" Angela looked to Hodgins with a raised eyebrow as she spoke. She had mixed feelings about being sent on this little quest of theirs. On one hand, she was glad to leave the awkward situation unfolding in the room behind them, but on the other, she was extremely curious about the concept that magic was real. She always wished for it to be so, so the world might not be as bleak as it looked, but never in her wildest dreams would she have expected it to be true. She wanted to find the doctor as fast as she could so she could get back to witness all this new world had to offer. She just hoped it would be less awkward when they did return.
Hodgins looked at his girlfriend and smiled, still giddy from the previous events. "Well I think we should start in the lab I originally found him in. It was this way."
The short man pointed to the left hallway branch and the pair were off.
Back in the large lab, Arthur was staring at Agent Booth expectantly.
"What happened to my kingdom?" Arthur repeated the question, his eyes widening at the end as he nodded his head slightly, urging the man before him to tell him.
"Well- uh," Booth began, his arms and hands moving from touching the back of his neck to resting on his hips like they were desperately trying to find some sort of comfortable position but failing miserably. His eyes scanned the room, moving from Arthur to the knights to Cam to Merlin to Gwen and finally to Cam again before he looked to the ground. He paused for a minute to collect his thoughts before looking Arthur in the eyes with a frown on his face. "It's gone."
The room was so silent that you could hear the beating of a fly's wings. Arthur then roared to life.
"Gone!? What do you mean gone!?"
Booth flinched his head back from the sudden outburst but quickly recovered by shaking his head. With a sigh and narrowing of his eyes, he spoke.
"I mean Camelot hasn't existed for over a thousand years. Actually, we weren't even sure if it existed in the first place, no one has found where it was. It was like it was wiped off the planet. The only reason everyone knows about it is from the legends that have been past down through time."
Arthur stared at the man before him with wide eyes and a clenched jaw. He could just feel that what the stranger had told him was true despite everything inside him screaming and begging for it to be a lie. He felt his emotions building up in his chest, stretching towards the surface. Anger. Confusion. Sadness. Anxiety. This can't be happening. This can't be happening. Camelot couldn't be gone. All the people. All that he's worked for, was for nothing. Everything his father left him in charge off was gone and forgotten like it never even existed. This can't be happening.
Arthur could feel tears welling up in his eyes, but before they could rear their ugly head, he quickly shut his eyes and took in a deep breath. Kings do not cry. He heard that thought in his father's voice.
After what felt like a lifetime with his eyes closed, he opened them and was met with the concerned face of Agent Booth. Not wanting to think about what was just revealed, the king turned to look at his friends. He could see the hurt in their eyes as well. The pain of knowing everything they ever knew was gone. His knights trying their best to put on a brave face as he was. Gwen, whether it was from running out of tears from mourning her brother or trying to put on a face of courage as well, was standing like a stone next to Leon, staring at the agent with wide eyes. Merlin was the only one who had visible tears in his eyes. He had always been emotional. If it were different circumstances, Arthur would've called him a girl for crying in public, but at this moment, he envied the younger man for being able to express what Arthur wanted to.
Arthur slowly turned his head back to the agent, any sign of tears replaced with a look of stone as he asked through gritted teeth, "Do you know what happened?"
Booth looked at the king with a sad expression before shaking his head. "No, I'm sorry I don't."
Arthur let out a rasped breath and closed his eyes once more. This can't be happening. The mantra repeated in his head before it suddenly stopped. But it is.
"I'm confused, mate," Gwaine's voice caused Arthur's eyes to open. He noticed a slight crack in the knights voice, as though he was trying to choke away the emotions welling up in his throat. "If Camelot is gone to the point where no one even knows where or if it existed, then how are there these legends you speak of?"
"They were written in old books and passed down from generation to generation. Maybe at one point, the location of Camelot was recorded, but it was lost over time," Cam spoke next to Booth, placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder to let him know he did his best during the situation. She talked softly to the group, like a teacher in grade school.
"Well," Gwaine started with a tilt of his head and a sigh. He crossed his arms and continued, "What exactly is known of our home, then?"
Cam opened her mouth and closed it. She really wasn't super familiar with the legends. Booth came to his friend's rescue, however. He stepped closer and put his hand on his hips yet again. He tilted his head and looked to the floor as he prepared himself to give a long speech. He looked up to the eyes that were staring at him intently.
"The legend goes that King Arthur was the ruler of Camelot and that it was this grand kingdom of peace and magic. According to the legends he went on journeys to find the Holy Grail, which was this magic, Jesus- power, cup thing." Booth made an attempt to draw an outline of a goblet with his hands as he spoke. He looked to the group for recognition and he surprisingly felt like he found some, but mostly they looked at him like he'd grown a second head.
"And there were stories that you went on to fight dragons and your evil sister Morgana, which it sounds like you did from what you've said," He looked up at Arthur for confirmation and the king nodded in return.
"There are stories about the different Knights of the Round Table and your advisor Merlin, which I, uh, guess is wrong since he's not really an advisor unless there's a different Merlin?" Booth tilted his head with a small chuckle as Arthur simply shook his head. Booth nodded back and continued.
"Well I'm not sure how it ended up like this, but in the legends, Merlin was a magic user and an old man with a long white beard who advised the king. There are different famous stories like how Arthur became king from pulling a sword from a stone or how Queen Guinevere had an affair with Lancelot." Booth noticed that last story struck a chord with everyone in the room by the scowls and averted glances.
"But the main thing almost everyone remembers is that Arthur ruled Camelot and old man Merlin helped him with magic."
Booth finished his long explanation and looked to the group. They were all staring at him with puzzled faces. All of them were thinking the same thing. How could he know so much, yet get so much wrong? Merlin an advisor and sorcerer? Holy Grail? Arthur would've become king with or without the sword in the stone. Camelot a kingdom of magic?
As the group stared at the agent, pondering their thoughts, they didn't realize that one of their members was not only confused but also anxious.
Merlin sat on the slab, lost in his own thoughts. Camelot gone. Everything he had protected and worked for was gone and now there were only fairytales in its place. He had wiped his eyes on his sleeve while Booth had been speaking, slightly embarrassed for crying in front of his friends and strangers. He looked at the agent with red eyes as he pondered the tale he just heard. He knows of my magic. Well not really, he knows that someone named Merlin whose an old man has magic. He doesn't think that's me. But that is me. It has to be! But how does he know? How does it get past down in the legends? Do my friends find out? Does Arthur find out? If this is the future and they know, then someone has to find out eventually to tell people. But why do they think I was an old man? Do they find out when I'm an old man?
Merlin was deeply lost in his thoughts when the conversation started again.
"Some of what you know is true, but some isn't," Arthur began with a wary glance at Booth and his friends. "Camelot is a place of peace, but magic isn't welcomed there. Magic is evil. It killed my mother and father, and it turned Morgana against us. I'm not sure why stories have been passed on that it has been accepted in my kingdom."
Merlin felt as though a hand was squeezing around his heart at his friend's statement reaffirmed his obvious hatred of magic. Of a majority of who he was, making him wonder yet again if Arthur and the rest of his friends would truly hate who he really was.
Booth's eyes widened at the information Arthur had just given him. Camelot didn't have magic? What's Camelot without magic? He didn't really know how to react to this new so he settled for crossing his arms and scrunching his eyebrows into a furrow.
"So you don't use magic? What about the sword?" Booth asked with a nod towards the sword etched in words and symbols.
"It's just a very good weapon," Arthur said warily. "I did find it in a stone though. It belonged to the first king of Camelot."
Merlin couldn't help but cynically chuckle in his head at Arthur's words. He didn't know that it was, in fact, a magical weapon, forged with the breath of a dragon.
Booth frowned, feeling a bit distraught by the lack of whimsy that came with the truth of Camelot, but the feeling went away quickly when he realized that it didn't matter if magic had been accepted in the ancient city, since magic still turned out to be real based on his current company and that was better than the whole legend being false. His eyes lit up as a thought came to his head.
"So, did you actually fight a dragon though?"
"Yes, I killed the last dragon myself."
About fifteen minutes passed as Arthur and the rest of the Camelot crew corrected and answered the legends presented by Booth. Cam listened intently, not speaking much, but asking her own questions here and there.
Just as they were discussing if the Cup of Life and the Holy Grail were, in fact, the same thing, their attention was drawn towards the hallway as Hodgins and Angela entered the room, weakly dragging the body of a woman with messy, dark hair behind them.
"Morgana," Arthur whispered to himself as he noticed his unconscious half-sister.
See you in the next chapter!