Chapter Eighteen

Disclaimer: I do not own Merlin.

Was the earth still far from done putting itself back together after a series of cataclysms that killed billions? Yes. Was the island of Anglesey most likely going to be under siege sometime soon? Also yes. Were the remnants of Camelot going to have to fight a war like no other that had come before? Again, yes.

Arthur was still happier than he'd been in a very long time.

With Merlin, our chances are looking better than before. I'll take it.

Speaking of the warlock, he seemed to be everywhere at once, energized by being back with his friends despite his unbelievable age.

In the weeks after Morgause's failed attack, Merlin kept busy by bolstering Elen's alarm spells, adding and maintaining powerful wards on the entire island, scouring the countryside with Aithusa in search of enemies and clues to their whereabouts, escorting several small refugee groups to Anglesey, supporting Arthur at council meetings, working in the clinic with Gaius, helping to teach Elen's apprentices, and eating with one or more of his old friends whenever he was able to observe mealtimes. He even occasionally provided more evidence for the skeptic few who still thought that all the magic and mayhem surrounding them was the result of bad grain or hallucinogenic mushroom spores.

By this point, most people on Anglesey had more or less accepted that Arthur was, in fact, the King Arthur. He was glad to not have to put any effort into hiding it anymore, but had a sneaking suspicion that some of the belief was the result of some sort of Stockholm Syndrome.

When the world you know ends, what are you going to believe? At least he'd had his past memories most of the time to help him adjust to abnormality.

Merlin, on top of everything else he had taken on, started "doing something I should've done centuries ago" and spent what bits of time he could spare helping Morgana to hone her magical abilities. Arthur hadn't witnessed any of these sessions personally, but apparently the relationship between the two was more professional than anything else. "As sick as I am of having only professional relationships with people...close relationships got too rough after a couple hundred years or so...I don't know what else to do," he told Arthur one morning as they examined the village's defenses together.

He then admitted to avoiding Mordred altogether. "Of course he eavesdrops. Knows too much even though no one tells him anything directly...Maybe I should just find a magic spell to bring all of his old memories out and wipe them. He'd still hear stories and know things about the past, but he wouldn't have to actually live with any of it. Living with guilt is…" He didn't have to finish.

It's torture. "I too did horrible things in my past life, Merlin," Arthur said after a minute. "And despite the guilt, I feel that I am wiser with that kind of hindsight. Wouldn't it be crueler to prevent Mordred from having the same experience?"

Merlin snorted and said, with no real bite, "Sometimes I miss when you were outright stupid. You're probably right. And doing something like that would probably lead to him getting all bitter and killing you. Again."

"You make it sound like I die every other week!"

"For a long time, you almost did die every other week!"

"It wasn't that often...idiot."

"Prat."

It had been blessedly easy for the two men to pick up more or less where they left off, despite the circumstances. That was another thing that made Arthur happy.

With hard work from everyone, Angelsey was keeping afloat. No more earthquakes had occurred as of late. Provided that the weather continued to be relatively normal, it looked like they would have a decent harvest. And, strangely, all the cattle, pigs, sheep, and other domesticated animals were thriving.

Maybe Hayden's rubbing off on all the other livestock-carers and everyone's now talking to their animals.

The school that Gwen had started part-time as even kids had to pitch in sometimes and become more of a three-quarters type thing, and lessons on mystical creatures, magical objects, and other general "Camelot-type" knowledge were being worked into the curriculum. There was no use in hiding it from them, after all. "We should always teach children to prepare them for the world," Gwen had said in the council meeting during which she pitched the new lessons. "This world isn't the one their parents grew up in; it's closer to the one Arthur and I did the first time around. We have to make sure their ready for it."

Something else of note was that the members of the "volunteer militia" had started calling themselves "the Knights of Anglesey"...and it was catching on. When questioned, the former knights of Camelot claimed...apparently with honestly...that they had not been the ones to start it.

Between everything going on, Arthur managed to find moments of peace to spend with friends, old and new, steal away with Gwen, or visit Morgana and Mordred. Gwen was always happy to go on a private walk away from duties and worries, and when Morgana on a bad day exclaimed that she didn't know why Arthur wasted his time visiting her, he said, "You're my family, Morgana. Even when we were enemies, we were always family. For God's sake stop beating yourself up over the past; it's not helping anyone, including you."

She laughed in response, wiping away her tears. "Okay. I'll try to be kinder to myself, dear brother." It was the first time she had ever used that endearment without venom behind it. That also made Arthur happy.

Someone who did not respond well to Arthur's attempts at pep talks, or anyone's for that matter, was Gwaine. He threw himself into training and any other task he was asked to do, but kept to himself when he wasn't with his family members. When Arthur tried to have more than a casual conversation with him, Gwaine would find some excuse to leave.

"He's grieving, Arthur," Gwen told him. "Give him time."

Merlin said pretty much the same thing when pressed. "He's told me he's managing, nothing else. I don't think he's really wanted to talk to anyone about...it, far as I know. Maybe his sister...Anyway, everyone's grieving for someone these days. He has to do it his own way."

I guess Merlin would know a lot about grief…

Still, Arthur couldn't quite let it go.

The rest of the Barclayns were very active in the community and far more social than Gwaine. Elen was becoming visibly more pregnant by the day, but did not seem to be decreasing her general workload much at all.

"Do you suppose she'll be having her twins from before? Henry and Heather?" Arthur said one day as he and his former knights plus Everard, Elwin, and Haralda, were checking over their armor and weapons after training.

He started mentally berating himself before Everard could even shoot him a dirty look. Damn it, Gwaine's here. After what happened to Cleva...

If couples from before were going to start having their former kids, that meant Gwaine hadn't just lost his wife twice; he'd lost his children again, too.

Arthur knew too well what it was like to have a hole in the heart where one's child should be.

Merlin's right. I'm a goddamn clotpole. "I'm sorry, that was terribly inappropriate," he said before anyone could comment. "Forget I said anything."

Everyone lapsed into awkward silence, and Arthur was not surprised when Gwaine got up and left without a word less than a minute later.

He still felt rotten about the whole thing the next evening when Merlin returned from another scouting mission with Aithusa and immediately called a meeting of all the Reincarnated Medievals, as he had taken to calling them. Even Hayden showed up for once. Only Mordred was absent; Morgana left him at home, presumably asleep.

Once all were gathered in Arthur and Gwen's cottage, Merlin launched into a tale of how he had tracked down a "complete simpleton" with a book of "antiquated dark spells" that he had been trying out "without a single solitary clue of what he was doing." After interrogating and divesting the inexperienced magic-user of his "borrowed" book of spells, Merlin and Aithusa sped back to the island with useful information at last.

"Edwin's the one who gave the idiot the book...Remember the one with the beetles who tried to set you on fire, Gaius? Yeah, him...His main goal is pure chaos this time around, apparently. He obeys Nimueh, though...Yes, she's the ringleader of the whole lot of the ones we have to worry about...ugh. Her plan is world domination, of course. 'Bring back the glory of the Old Religion' and all that. Ma'am, your 'glory' is not what the Old Religion is about! I digress...She got a hold of Sigan, too, but he's under her control as well. Shoved him in some poor fool's body...She's gathered everyone she can find who returned and has a grudge against Camelot...the one I found was next to useless, though...except Morgause. She was 'too focused' on her sister or something...Anyway, they're tentative allies, but Morgause does her own thing a lot of the time. She would definitely join forces with the rest to get rid of us. And they've set themselves up on the Isle of Wight...you know, the old Isle of Mora...and they're currently decided how they can kill me and get rid of any other opposition. There are a few other details, of course, but that's the general idea... Any questions?"

For a while everyone...former knights, royals, advisors, sorcerers, and one wyvern tamer...sat in silence, absorbing the new yet not entirely unexpected information. Then, from her position in a lonely corner of the room, Morgana spoke up. "I've got one."

Arthur glanced at her, and as their gazes met, he noted her slight smirk and realized that they were thinking the exact same thing. Grinning, he said, "Yeah, I think I have the same one. Instead of waiting for them to figure out how to get rid of you and then invade Angelsey with no real effort...how can we take the fight to them?"

Outside the living room window, Aithusa let out a deep, smoky chuckle. "I'm with the Once and Future King on this one."