Chapter Four
Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin.
Two days later, Elen still discouraged Gwaine from leaving his bed unless absolutely necessary, and this afternoon he was alone, fuming silently about being stuck when he heard the door creak open. He looked over to see Heidi...Hertha...poking her head through. "Can I come in?" she asked cautiously.
"Why not?"
"Helen said we couldn't bother you."
Right, makes sense. He'd heard his cousins' voices quite a bit over the past couple days...the size of the cottage made it impossible not to...but Elen had been keeping them out so he could rest. "Well, she's not here now, and I'm much better, really."
Slipping inside and closing the door gingerly, the girl began to fiddle with her messy braid. "She went to gather stuff with Hal. Evan's napping. Ethan's playing with the dogs outside."
"I see. Where have the twins been sleeping, anyway?"
"Living room. They don't like it. But Hal's room is basically a the size of a closet."
Gwaine snorted. "Figures." He shifted the pillows around so he could sit upright and patted the edge of the bed. "Come here; I'm not breakable. Did you bring a deck of cards, by any chance?"
The girl's worried expression immediately morphed into a broad grin, and she skipped over, pulling the cards out of her jacket pocket.
As they played a few games and Heidi rambled on about how annoying her brothers were, Gwaine kept stealing glances at her, overwhelmed with memories of a joyful, brilliant woman with a wild mane of hair who acted out every story she told. He could see her pacing in front of a crowd in a fire-lit room, her hands making expressive shadows on the walls and her voice rising and falling like she was casting a spell. She was bold and energetic right up until the end, he recalled, suppressing a grimace. She died before me. They all did.
He'd been forcing that thought down since his old memories returned, but there it was. Suddenly all he could think about was Hertha passing away in her sleep without warning, not long after Haralda had died in Camelot and not long before King Everard drew his last breaths in Bernicia. He recalled Hayden's simple funeral, and Elen…
"Are you okay, Garth?" Heidi looked worried again.
He forced a smile. "Just thinking, Dee."
"Don't call me that!" She made a face. I'm not a baby anymore!"
"No, just the baby of the family." Ruffling her hair, he smiled for real this time. "If you insist. So, what were you just saying about Helen?"
"Oh, yeah, I was just saying that…" Leaning forward, gaze darting around the room as if checking for eavesdroppers, she whispered dramatically, "I think she and Hal like each other!" She sat back, looking triumphant with her deduction.
He had to laugh. She has no idea. Not yet. "I think you may be right, Heidi."
The next day, Gwaine woke up rather excited, as Elen had told him the previous evening he could at last leave his bed in the morning. Mind occupied with various plans, he was almost through getting dressed when he realized he was fumbling around for a sword he didn't have.
Damn. This is going to take some getting used to. The long dagger Elen had been kind enough to leave by his bedside….along with a meager breakfast and some pills...didn't have nearly the same comforting weight when he attached it to his belt, but it had to do.
The twins were at the kitchen table, muttering over some of the well-worn comic books they'd brought with them to the cottage, when Gwaine walked in. To his surprise, both teenagers gave him careful hugs before he even got his dirty plate to the sink. "Are you sure you're okay?" Evan asked.
I've fought battles while in more pain. Plus we didn't have over-the-counter painkillers back then when magic wasn't available. "I'll survive, Ev. You two doing alright?" He scrutinized them both, thinking Dear lord, they're almost exactly the same as their past selves. Just give them longer hair and some Albion-era clothes.
"Yeah, we're good," Ethan said, wrinkling his nose. "Hal's in the woods teaching Heidi how to set traps."
"And this displeases you?"
"No, he's just annoyed about catching Hal kissing Helen earlier," Evan said with a stern look in his twin's direction.
"We barely know the guy!"
"We've been living in his house for six months, Ethan! And that aside, Helen knows him way better!"
"But he never talks!"
"No, he listens," Gwaine interrupted. Arguing just like they used to, back when they were young princes on the training field. I don't think I missed that. "And he's damn good at it."
Narrowing his eyes, Ethan said, "You don't mind."
"No, I don't." I remember them being married for decades. The weirdness wore off. "I like him fine, they like each other, and besides, we owe him a lot. I suggest you deal with it. Where is she, anyway?"
"Outside," Evan said. "It's marginally warmer today."
Leaving the boys to their comics and grabbing a coat on the way out, Gwaine found his sister sitting on the front steps, absentmindedly stroking the Jade while she stared into the distance. The dogs lounged about the yard, each gnawing contentedly on a bone. Hayden was always good at getting animals to behave. "Not too cold today, huh?" he said as he lowered himself onto the step beside Elen.
Elen shook herself and glanced at him. "Yeah. Just a bit chilly. Don't get used to it, just in case."
"Yeah. I think we're all getting used to disappointment."
"Hmm. How's the injury?"
"Bit sore." He watched her as she continued petting the cat. Her hair had grown out some over the past months, framing her face in soft golden waves. She looked older than her age, too. Understandable. Though that started before the memories came back. And…"Your magic?"
She smiled faintly, whispered a word, and held out her hand to reveal the small, bright flame dancing on her palm.
"So all the spells you used to know…"
"They work. The ones I've tried, at least." She laughed softly. "I'd forgotten how it felt, to have it at my fingertips...to feel it singing in my blood…"
"I know what you mean." Gwaine took a deep breath, eyes still on his sister. She looks happy about it...She always missed it...Without thinking, he blurted, "You died a decade before I did, you know."
"I...what?" She blinked at him. "Ten whole years?"
"Well, maybe closer to eight. But it was a while." Gwaine hesitated, then leaned over and pulled his sister into a tight embrace. Closing his eyes, he murmured, "I just woke up one day and somehow knew you were gone...I missed you so much, Elen. Every damn day."
She hugged him back, not saying anything for a while. Then, "Did you keep using magic?"
"There's the thing. It...went away. Not long after you did." He pulled away with a dry chuckle. "I think it was still tied to you, somehow. I guess you were right; the magic was never really mine. It was always yours."
"Oh. I'm sorry." Biting her lip for a moment, she said, "Hayden...He didn't mention that. We, um…"
"I'm sure you've had other things to talk about. He missed you, too."
"I suppose. I…" Elen let out a huff. "It's...it's just so much…"
"I know." It's so much that I've been trying to avoid it like the plague.
"I looked through some of our photo albums yesterday. It's so strange...Seeing Mum and Dad, then remembering them like they used to be, back in Bernicia...And you know what else?" She laughed again, a little bitterly this time. "Looking at those pictures of us as a family, I honestly thought to myself, 'I'd kill for a photo of Henry and Heather.'"
"I can imagine," Gwaine replied with a smile. "I know I'd love to have one of Caldwell and Holly."
And that was when it hit him.
My son and daughter are dead. Our children...they're gone.
Just like their parents...We lost them twice; Aldwyn, too...along with myriad others, most probably never to return. They had passed long ago, their very bones crumbling to dust under a fast-changing world that forgot everything about them save a few legendary names. And even those were twisted almost beyond recognition. Like that legend about Arthur and Morgana having a child together...ugh. Disgusting.
For an instant, he let himself picture his own children: Caldwell with his perceptive dark eyes that so often flashed gold, Holly with her ringing laugh and her trusted sword that rarely left her side. He remembered them as young children, as adolescents growing into their respective skills, and as adults, wise and strong and very much alive when he took his last breath.
But not anymore.
His eyes stung and he clamped them shut, trying to stifle the gut-wrenching ache inside of him...the yawning pit in his confusing existence where they...his children, his wife, his parents...should still be. He felt Elen's hand close over his arm, squeezing gently. "I know, brother," she said, her voice sounding thick. "I know."
They remained on the steps like that, lost in sorrowful memories...some truly bad ones, like the sight of a crumpled, blood-spattered car in the middle of the road, others good but touched with grief, like watching several young children play among a pack of wyverns...until Hayden and Heidi returned.
The nightmares started that night, off and on, and the only comfort Gwaine could find was that they were the same old familiar ones. Almost killing Father, watching Aldwyn die, Elen's blank-eyed stare after her imprisonment by the warlord Haig, seeing Cleva or the children hurt and not being able to help them...At least I know what to expect.
He couldn't say that about the real world now.