His phone rang, rudely jolting him from a very nice dream that he had been having which involved Gwen, a bubble bath and very little clothes. Cracking an eye open, he saw Merlin's smiling mug on the screen of his phone.

Once a cockblocker, always a cockblocker.

"This had better be important. Like world ending important."

"Good morning to you too!" chirped Merlin into his ear. "I analysed the ash of the manticore and –"

Arthur threw an arm across his face and groaned. "Don't you sleep, Merlin? I know you fancy yourself some sort of great magician -"

"Wizard –"

"Whatever, but try to behave like a normal person."

"Right," said Merlin. "I'm coming over so get out of bed and put on some clothes."

Arthur swore but Merlin had hung up, leaving a photo of a laughing Gwen on his screen. Gently, he ran a thumb across it and guilt once again gnawed at him. Tossing the phone aside, he got out of bed and padded into his bathroom.

He was drinking his coffee when Merlin walked in. "Giving you a copy of the keys was the worst idea."

Ignoring him, Merlin strode to the bookshelf and pushed at the wall next to it. Slowly, the bookshelf revolved, opening up to a room. When Arthur continued to sip his coffee, Merlin popped his head out of the room. "It involves Gwen."

"Damn." Arthur took a gulp of his coffee, then went after Merlin. The secret room – although it was so small, Arthur thought it was more closet than room – was the main reason Arthur had made this small estate his residence. That and the fact that it was tucked away from the main hustle and bustle of Camelot city. A large map of Camelot hung on one wall, decorated with various coloured tacks and strings, inspired a little by all the cop shows Merlin loved to watch. To its side was a weapons rack with a variety of swords and axes. Arthur's favourite sword, Excalibur, took a position of pride in the rack. A small cupboard and a table strewn with books made up the rest of the room.

Merlin tapped on the large Camelot map. "This is where the attack happened last night."

"I know that. I was there." Leaning against the table, Arthur crossed his arms. "I still don't see any pattern."

"That's because you're not very observant. But, to be fair, I didn't either, until I started wondering why a manticore would be dispatched to attack on Gwen's street. Unlike the other attacks, Gwen's place isn't near any ley lines."

Arthur frowned and stared at the maps and the little blue pins that marked where all the previous attacks had taken place. While there had always been leaks between the other side and this world, especially during the full moon, in the past year, there had been a change in the creatures that had been coming through – they were more dangerous and Merlin, in his obsessive tracking of all the creatures they defeated, realised that they had traces of magic cast on them by a third party.

Merlin tapped the map again. "I think the common denominator is Gwen."

Then, Arthur saw it. Gwen's office. Gwen's favourite coffee shop. Gwen's best friend's (who wasn't him) office. Gwen's brother's car workshop. The library where she did her writing.

"Damn," Arthur said again. "This has never happened before."

"It looks targetted. Not the random escapees that we usually deal with." Merlin frowned as he stared at the map, his fingers gently tracing the threads. "Do we tell Gwen?"

"That she's being targeted or about us?"

"Both? Honestly, I'm surprised that someone as smart as she is hasn't figured it out."

Arthur rubbed his forehead trying to ease away the beginnings of a headache. "Remind me why we never told her?"

"Because she freaked out the last time we told her, hopped on the first ship out of Camelot and we never found her again. Also, I rather not have another TLS."

"TLS. Is that what we're calling it now?"

"Everything is an acronym today," said Merlin with a shrug. "TLS - The Lancelot Situation."

Closing his eyes, Arthur let out a sigh. The Lancelot Situation had been a mess. During their last reincarnation, bored to death at The Great Exhibition, Arthur had escaped his uptight family, found Merlin and went wandering outside where they chanced across Lancelot, sitting in a field of flowers, who seemed to fancy himself some sort of poet. Merlin had brought with him some of his homebrewed beer and the three of them had partaken in it. Somewhere in the middle of conversations about republics, free trade and factories, Arthur and Merlin had decided it was a good idea to tell Lancelot that he was reincarnated.

He took it well, at first, although he never did have memories of his past life the way Arthur and Merlin did.

Some months later, Arthur learnt from a mutual friend that Lancelot had been sent to an asylum after he wouldn't stop insisting that he was a Knight and thus should be allowed into the Camelot Army. They broke Lancelot out with Merlin's magic.

"Surely, I was reincarnated for a reason," Lancelot had moaned piteously as they sat in Merlin's crumbling house. "What better reason than to lead the Camelot Army to glorious victory?"

"Firstly, there aren't any wars to fight right now. Secondly, did you think they were going to let you walk into the army just like that?" Merlin took another gulp of his beer. "You should have come to us."

And that was how the Merlin and Arthur Spiritualists became the Merlin, Arthur and Lancelot Spiritualists, which shouldn't have been a problem. Only Lancelot was sad all the time, because he imagined a more glorious future for himself, not one that involved crawling around dirty basements and discovering that 8 out of 10 times, those strange noises were really just rats. And it turned out that even those bothered by the supernatural didn't want to deal with morose mediums.

"He took his reincarnation a little too seriously. It messed with his mind and emotions," said Arthur. "He should have been reincarnated this time instead of Gwaine. There's actually something more than spirit leakage happening. Lancelot would be all over this."

"Maybe we should tell Gwaine too."

Arthur rolled his eyes. "What, no! He's happy running his hipster open-mic café. And without his memories, who is to say he will even believe us?"

"Camelot has been invaded by weird creatures every full moon which are handily defeated by a sexy dragon man and a weird, hooded man with a sword," said Merlin. "I promise you that reincarnation is not that hard to believe in."

"Excuse me, I am the sexy one. I am the one that Gwen is in love with, for one thing."

"Ha! And yet, you still haven't figured out how to make her love you in this form." From somewhere, Merlin pulled out the morning's newspaper. "Look here – the enigmatic Dragoon once again comes to Camelot's rescue. Enigmatic. That means mysteriously handsome."

Arthur snatched the newspaper. "That means mysterious only. And why is the whole article about you, with only one line about me?"

"That's because I am the sexy, enigmatic one." Merlin grinned and walked out of the room.

"You're not even interested in relationships or sex!"

"Doesn't mean I don't like being attractive."

Arthur closed up the secret room, picked up his now cold coffee and scowled at it. "So do we tell Gwen?"

The grin dropped from Merlin's face. "You're her best friend. You decide. Now, I have to get to work. It's a pity my money never gets reincarnated with me."

"I have enough money for the both of us."

Merlin pulled on his coat. "That is true. But I work in a university science lab. Where better to test the manticore ash? Magic has identifying marks so I want to check if it's consistent across all the creatures."

When Merlin left, Arthur took a sip of his coffee, then dumped the rest into the basin. As usual, his mind went to Gwen. How often he had fantasised about telling her the truth, that she was his reincarnated Queen? Aside from Merlin, she was the other one who always reincarnated at the same time. But while he and Merlin always remembered when they turned 21 - the moment Merlin's magic would suddenly make an appearance and the strange happenings would start - Gwen never did. It made relationships with her tricky and after the disaster in the 17th century, Arthur had quickly learnt that he might be fated to fall for her in each and every life, but it didn't necessarily mean she would feel the same way.

The alarm on his phone went off, cutting into his thoughts and reminding him that he had an emergency meeting with his Vice-President, Pete, to discuss some suspicious activities that they had discovered in their network. With a muttered curse, Arthur padded into the bathroom for a quick shower before his high-strung assistant got worried about his tardiness.

George, his driver, was punctual as usual, the low slung, bright red car idling just outside the main doors of Arthur's apartment building. With a nod at the doorman, Arthur slid into the cool interior of the car and leaned into the soft leather. The three of them had gone shopping for the car together and Gwen had zeroed in on the car. Of course, after he bought it for the sole reason that she was taken by it, Gwen started teasing him about the car, suggesting that its power was compensation for something. She was such a pain.

He pulled out his phone and when Gwen answered his call in her usual chirpy manner, his smile only got bigger.

"How are you feeling?"

"A bit sore but otherwise I'm fine. What about you? Did you get enough rest?"

"I did. I'm on my way to work. Want a lift?"

Gwen's laugh caressed his spine. "Tempting, but you did say that you had an important meeting this morning. Half an hour on the train won't kill me."

"It won't be much trouble and I won't be too late."

"Arthur, I can make it to my office myself. Just remember to get Nadeem to pencil in that interview with me this week. I'll even let you pay for the meal."

"Right."

"You're going to forget."

"I wouldn't forget about you," said Arthur.

Gwen snorted into the phone, then with a quick goodbye, their connection ended and Arthur missed her immediately.

Despite not picking Gwen up, Arthur was still ten minutes late for the meeting and was met at the door by Nadeem, who was chewing on his pencil frantically, signalling his anxiety. Arthur patted him on the shoulder, then walked into the large boardroom. He hated the large, rectangular state-of-the art table that his father had installed in the middle of room. Too much metal and glass for Arthur's taste. Only two people sat at the table - Pete and his chief security officer, Sera.

"Finally," said Pete.

Knowing that it would piss him off, Arthur smirked at Pete, waiting till he settled down at the head of the table before pulling off his sunglasses.

"Sera, now that Arthur has graced us with his presence, why don't you share what you discovered."

She nodded and with a click of a button, the screen in the front of the room flickered on.

Arthur had convinced himself that Pete was making a mountain out of a molehill when he'd contacted him a few days ago. Pete had a tendency to see everything as a catastrophic disaster. Now, as Sera spoke, Arthur realised that it was indeed a mountain. Not a very big mountain perhaps, but a mountain nevertheless.

"How long has this been going on?"

"It started small, perhaps three months ago."

Arthur let out a breath. "Do we know who is responsible?"

"Not yet."

"And it's not simply negligence?"

Sera shook her head. "Someone or many someones are doing this on purpose."

For the third time that day, Arthur muttered, "damn."

"We need to keep this out of the press," said Pete. "Shouldn't be too hard since we own most of it."

"I want updates everyday on the investigation," said Arthur. "And no one else is to know about this. Keep it between us."

Pete stood. "But you'll tell Merlin and Gwen."

Arthur scowled. "What I tell Merlin and Gwen is my business."

"Not when it involves the company," said Pete. "What help would a lab technician and a budding writer be anyway?"

"Don't forget who the boss is here."

Pete's lips pressed together but he inclined his head. "Noted. I'll work with Sera and we'll convene for an update tomorrow."

"Good."

The glass door shut silently and Arthur was left alone, surrounded by metal, glass and his troubled thoughts. Standing at the window, Arthur stared down at the buzzing city Camelot was. Three - or was it four - reincarnations before, Camelot had been just a town - one of the biggest in Albion, but roads were still made of dirt and the stars could still be seen at night. Life had seemed simpler then.