Alright I have decided to continue with this story as so many of you liked it and wished for me to do so. So I hope you enjoy chapter 2

Note: I have finally had the time to correct the lack of puntuction that was in this chapter. I uploaded this chapter in a different format as I forgot to change it, so I'm sorry for how it was before, but it's corrected now :)

Merlin walked up through the halls to Arthur s room still not caring as to where he was really going. He had a much better place that he would like to be in at the moment, although he highly doubted that he would get enough time to go there soon.

When he got to Arthur's room he did the same thing that he always does, which is walking straight in with out knocking on the door. He was also well aware that it was some thing that Arthur hated him doing, however he couldn t care less at the moment.

When he walked in he saw that what Gaius told him had indeed been right. Arthur was sat at his desk while the knights sat around the table. Well all of them apart from Gwaine who was laying with his feet on Arthur's bed, an action which had obviously gone unnoticed by the prince or Gwaine would probably be in a lot of trouble at the moment.

As he shut the door, Percival turned to face him with a smile as he rose from his chair and began walking towards him.

His actions didn't go unnoticed by Gwaine who also smiled before parting his lips to speak.

"You kept us waiting Merlin." His voice broke the strong silence that had formed in the room and around the knights.

Arthur snapped his head up as Gwaine mentioned Merlin's name. He glanced at his servant before returning to his paper work and tried to go back to how he was a moment ago and hope that none of the others had noticed his reaction.

Luckily for him it seemed that no one had as they were all to busy focusing on some thing else.

"Your awfully late Merlin," Arthur began trying to make things as normal as possible even though they really didn t seem it at the moment, "What managed to catch your mind this time was it-" Arthur stopped speaking and raised his head once again, this time though his attention was on Gwaine who just shrugged in reply.

"Gwaine what are you doing?" Arthur asked not hiding his annoyance. How could he not have noticed that Gwaine was laying on his bed.

"Waiting for Merlin." He replied.

"Well Merlin's here now, so get up before I pull you up." Arthur said as he watched Gwaine stand up and head over towards Merlin and the others, muttering some thing under his breath that Arthur couldn't quite catch.

It was Percival that managed to notice a difference in his friend first, from the moment he had walked through the door. As soon as he entered the room, Percival gave him a smile. When he didn't return it, he walked over to him.

Gwaine had been the next to notice the arrival of the usually happy boy. Even then there was some thing that he seemed to miss.

The other knights also seemed to notice Merlin's arrival, however they didn t notice it either. Or maybe it was Percival just going crazy, but he was sure that some thing was wrong with Merlin.

Some thing didn't feel right.

Arthur had been the last to realise that Merlin was here, but still he didn t seem to notice. Maybe he really was going crazy, or at least that's what he was beginning to believe any way.

He placed a hand on Merlin s shoulder as Gwaine and the other knight's came closer to them. Percival couldn t have predicted that Merlin's body would be so cold.

Percival took a step back and looked at Merlin. He wanted to say nothing, but he couldn't help him self.

"Arthur come here." He said as calmly as he could. Merlin was shaking his head at him as if telling him not to call Arthur over, however Percival wasn't stopping the prince.

"What is it?" Arthur asked, sounding more annoyed than he did caring. Arthur did care, however he just couldn't push the caring side of him out.

"Merlin's soaking. "It was a simple sentence made up of simple words, however it brought on so many questions. Merlin mentally slapped him self for not changing clothes before coming to Arthur, or at least chucking his jacket back on.

"Merlin why are you soaking wet?" Arthur asked his servant surprised that his voice still didn t sound as caring as he had wanted it to.

"I walked here." Merlin replied trying to give Arthur a simple excuse. Why did Percival have to be so observant like Lancelot?

"It's not raining that heavily though." Elyan said as he looked out of the prince's window.

"It was when I walked here." Merlin lied. He couldn t believe how sure that lie had sounded. Maybe it was because he was used to lying now.

"No it wasn't." Percival replied before any one else could. Merlin was silently cursing Percival's observing skills.

"Look, why did you want me here any way?" Merlin asked. His question was more directed at Arthur, but the other knights were listening just as intently.

"Because we need to discuss some thing as a group." Arthur explained. His mind was already filling with thoughts of his birthday, which was quickly approaching, however he was desperately trying to push them to the back of his mind, so that he could focus on the issue at hand.

Merlin went to say some thing to Arthur, like a simple get on with it then, however some one else had the same idea, however they chose to speak before him.

"Arthur just get on with it, we don't all have the patience that Merlin has to wait around for you already." Gwaine said, once again managing to place a small faint smile on to Merlin's face.

It didn't last long.

"We need to discus what we're going to do now that Lancelot s gone," Merlin didn t like where this was going, but he knew how knights worked. If you lost a knight then you needed a knew one to put in the missing one's place, "We need to find a knight that s good enough to replace Lancelot and you can help us, if you want." Arthur finished.

One word in that sentence had tipped the scales to far for Merlin.

"Well you can try if you want Arthur, but I know that you can find any one who can replace Lancelot, he's irreplaceable, he's one of a kind," Merlin paused before adding, "And no Arthur I won't help you."

With that said Merlin walked out of the room allowing the door to slam shut.

"Well that was nice." Gwaine spoke sarcastically.

"I guess we ll just have to find a replacement for Lancelot ourselves then." Arthur replied as he walked back over to his chair and sat down, re-reading over the papers that were on the table before calling the knights over to view them to.

Sir Leon, Gwaine and Elyan moved almost instantly interested to see what sort of knights had written to Arthur in hope of joining the Knights of Camelot.

But, Percival stayed where he was for a moment. His eyes watched the door carefully. He could still imagine Merlin's image in his mind. The young boy was soaked right through and Percival could easily image Merlin being in trouble with Lancelot if the knight was still here.

Percival shook the thoughts out of his head before he walked over to join Arthur and the others at the table.

Merlin still didn t care that his clothes were soaked or that he was beginning to feel very cold. He just kept walking. The cave may be empty now, however it still served as a great place for thought.

The old, black chain still lay broken on the floor. The very same chain that had once trapped Kilgarrah in the blank space. Now that the cave was empty it served as the perfect place for Merlin to go when he wanted to be alone and not be found by any one at all.

He sat down on to the floor allowing Arthur's words to file in to his head again. Merlin couldn't put his shock in to words when he had heard that Arthur seriously thought about replacing Lancelot. Of course Merlin had known that they would have had to have filled Lancelot's empty position at some point, but couldn't Arthur have used a different word, one other than replaced?

Replace was a word that didn t fit in to a sentence with the name Lancelot. After all he wasn't dead.

Lancelot couldn't be dead.

However hearing Arthur say those words in a sentence had already given Merlin enough proof to tell him that Arthur had already given up on hope. Given up on thinking of some thing else that could magically happen. All that Merlin needed was to find someone that shared his belief. Although Arthur and the knights may have given up hope.

Merlin hadn't.

I hope you like this chapter as much as you liked the first one. Thanks for reading and please review. I decided to continue with this as so many of you liked this. Thanks for all of the reviews, favourites, alerts and support, it really means lot s to me.