Chapter Three
Disclaimer: I do not own Merlin.
Before he realized he'd started moving, Garth found himself between the creature and his sister. It pawed at the ground, tearing up mats of grass and lowering its massive head. Its tusks seemed to glint in the cold light.
He reached for the long dagger in his belt, the largest of his father's collection. As he unsheathed it, he realized just how small it really was. I should have a sword, or a spear...This won't work unless I get right under the thing without being gutted...Then, just maybe…
Abruptly, the boar let out an ear-splitting squeal and charged.
"Helen, get back!" Garth yelled, throwing himself out of the way yet forward. A sudden tearing sensation down his side, followed by searing pain as he hurtled through the air, told him that he hadn't moved fast or far enough. Then he hit a tree and blacked out.
But only for a moment, and not long enough for him to miss Helen's scream.
Or the boar's.
For an instant, the forest was flooded with brilliant light. Garth instinctively shut his eyes, feeling a powerful wind sweep over him, not understanding the wave of exhilaration that flooded through him under the shock and terror.
And when he opened his eyes again and propped himself up on his elbows, the boar was a smoldering heap of fur and bones.
Oh, God...wait, my sister, where...
"Helen…" He tried to move, crying out as pain ripped through his body and brought him to the ground again. With one hand, he fumbled at the left side of his rib cage, feeling something hot and sticky coating a tear in his coat and shirts. That's not good...Black spots swam in his vision.
"Brother!" Helen flung herself down beside him, rolling him onto his back and batting his hand away from the injury. "No, no, no...Don't move any more, just let me look…Should've been faster…"
Somewhere in the distance, Hal's dogs were barking. "Helen…" Garth choked out, struggling to blink away the encroaching darkness, "That thing...I don't...what did you…"
"Just hush, you brave idiot…" She sobbed harshly. "Don't you dare die on me, Gwaine...don't you dare..."
Gwaine? What the hell...Unconsciousness swallowed the thought, along with the rest of him.
Everything hurt. His body rattled with chills even as his inside burned. The voices around him echoed too loudly, clanging around his skull and making him want to scream. But he couldn't even summon the strength to do that.
"Ah! Strength has arrived!"
When he'd been eight, he'd fallen off his bike and ended up with a broken arm. In the hospital waiting room, Helen had sat next to him, keeping him distracted mostly by telling him what an idiot he was until their mother had told her to stop.
"That's final, you two. No more races through the apple trees."
At age ten, he'd gotten into his first schoolyard brawl. His father had sat him down and given him a long lecture on how violence wasn't the answer to anything. Garth never got into another fistfight again; verbal fights were another subject altogether.
"I've been watching you, Gwaine. And you're a warrior, it's clear. I keep telling myself that it's enough to know that my son can fight when I cannot. But it isn't. I wish it was."
He and his cousin Alan had taken their first motorbike rides when they were fifteen and seventeen, respectively. It had been very dangerous and illegal and they'd found themselves in enormous trouble when they were caught, but it had been thrilling and so worth it.
"If we're lucky…meet you on the other side of the war, cousin."
"Yeah. Meet you on the other side."
Memories of holidays in bustling London tangled with memories of walking through cobbled streets under unpolluted skies and red-gold banners. Images of a modest townhouse on a broad street melded with pictures of a small castle among a sprawling apple orchard. Recollections of riding a motorbike to work clashed with horseback rides over untamed highlands.
He could remember boring tests in school, crazy uni parties, and supermarket visits. He could also remember sword-fighting lessons, wild Beltane feasts, and difficult hunts.
He knew that he lived in the United Kingdom of the twenty-first century, and that he was twenty-five years old. Yet he could recall being older than sixty, and living in a time when unicorns still roamed the forests of Albion and dragons still soared across the skies.
I'm Garth Barclay...mechanic, legal guardian of three cousins, and reluctant survivalist.
Yet he was also Gwaine Barclayn...knight, member of the royal family of Bernicia, and, for a long time, reluctant sorcerer.
He still didn't feel like he had it anywhere near completely sorted out when his fever finally broke and he awoke lucid enough to tell his sister that yes, his side did hurt like hell but no, he didn't think he was dying . I do remember what that felt like.
Elen, somehow appearing both softened and hardened by her "reemerged" memories, slumped into the chair by his bed and rested her head in her hands. "I was never the healer that Mother was."
"No, you weren't." She glanced up, and he met her gaze with a wry grin. "Neither was I, though."
She let out a shaky laugh. "You were better at starting fires."
"Yeah. Not sure I could…" He shifted, grimacing. "Ugh. Not sure I could manage that right now."
"Well…" Elen was interrupted by a soft knock on the door. "Come in!"
Hayden walked in, expression full of concern. "Are you all right, Gw...Garth?"
"I'm still alive." Gwaine chuckled. "I get why you name your pets after rocks now. Seriously, how long have you remembered?"
Instantly relaxed, Hayden smiled and said, "You mean, how long have I remembered my past life? Since the first day Elen walked through the door of the animal shelter, months ago."
"Damn." That must've been hard. I can't imagine if I'd seen Cleva and...Oh. No. Not going there right now. "Hey, did you have weird dreams before that, though?"
"A few." Sitting down on the cot across the room, Hayden said, "If that's an indicator, I'd say Everard and Elwin are close to remembering, too."
Gwaine flinched, a vivid memory surfacing . Cold rain, the slumped shoulders of the returning patrol, the shrouded bodies of the dead from a border skirmish...King Everard's wrenching sobs echoing around the castle courtyard... "That's...that's not going to be pretty."
"It'll hurt, but at the same time...They'll get a second chance," Hayden pointed out.
A second chance at what? Saying goodbye before one or both of them die?
" The real question is, how the hell is any of this possible?" Elen said. "We all died . And apparently came back, right around the time human civilization is collapsing partly because of the damned weather…And now giant boars are roaming around Northumberland..."
"And you're blowing them up. How did you explain that to the kids?"
Elen avoided his gaze. "We didn't let them see it. Didn't actually tell them that it did died or how big it was, either."
"Huh." Drained of all energy, Gwaine slumped back against the pillows and closed his eyes. "How long was I out, anyway?"
Hayden answered. "Two days, give or take."
His eyes flew open again. "Only two? That's odd. Without good healing magic, that is."
"Not when you have a stash of antibiotics." Elen stood up; Hayden mirrored her and they seemed to reach for each other's hands automatically. "I'll get you some painkillers; then I want you to sleep, brother. We'll talk more in a while."
"Over a thousand years later and you're still bossing me around," Gwaine mumbled. Yet he was grateful to leave his bewildering mess of memories behind as he fell asleep.
I bet Merlin knows what's going on was the first thing that popped into his head when he woke up again.
Young Merlin grinning at him over a tray of food. Middle-aged Merlin telling stories at a feast and laughing uproariously. Old Merlin groaning and grumbling about his aching bones. Hundreds, thousands of memories, all centered around the clever, selfless man who had, arguably, been the most powerful person to ever walk the Earth. If anyone would understand what's happening, it would be him.
When he voiced this thought to his sister over the light breakfast she brought him, she rolled her eyes dramatically and said, "He's Emrys , Gwaine. Of course he knows what's going on. Assuming he's still alive."
The idea of Merlin being dead was not one he ever wanted to confront. Done that alread y. "Well, he's immortal, right? Supposedly?" Never understood the immortality business when Merlin told me about it, but he seemed pretty certain...
"According to legend, yes. He's supposed to wait for the return of the Once and Future King to save Albion in its darkest hour."
"In other words, he's waiting for Arthur to show up." Gwaine chewed thoughtfully on a slightly stale cracker. "We should go find him." And look for more supplies...I should check on that when I'm allowed up...
Sighing, Elen shook her head. "Not right now. Maybe when you're better. I didn't sew up a massive gash on your ribs just for you to rip the stitches out in a week."
"All right." After she left, Gwaine lay awake, trying to come up with the best strategy for finding a missing immortal warlock. Poor Merlin…He might've been alone all this time...Where would he be hiding out if the world ended?
He fell asleep deliberating on the possibilities...and avoiding any thoughts outside of his old friend and solving the mystery of the unexpected apocalypse. I don't want to deal with everything else. I can't. I won't. Not yet.
Garth wouldn't have been able to compartmentalize like that; he'd never learned how.
But Gwaine could...he'd learned how to a long, long time ago.