Laney held out a cup of coffee for her brother, as he came into the kitchen. Fresh from a shower after his morning run, he accepted it with a tired smile. "Back to the grind tomorrow?" She asked rhetorically.
"Yeah, General Landry gave me the day off to recoup from the party, before I get back to the grind." He slid down onto a chair at the harvest table in the kitchen. The dark stained planks of wood told a story with every fork mark, ding, and cup ring. It had been in Boyd's family for a few generations and still was as strong a table as one could imagine.
"You didn't drink as much as I thought you would." Laney commented. She smoothed her hair back and wrapped it with an elastic band. Pouring a cup for herself, she sat down across from Gwaine. The house was quiet. The boys were off to school for the day and old Boyd was out tinkering with something in the barn.
Gwaine shrugged away his sister's observation. In high school, he drank rather heavily...at least until he wrecked his bike. That had been a wake up call for him at that time. He never gave up drinking, but the alcohol flowed a lot slower, and he tried to be a lot more responsible when he did. When he was flung into the past to a place where there were no police or laws against drinking and riding a horse, he'd allowed himself to fall back into the bottle...or tankard as it were. That was, until he met Merlin.
"I heard you out on the porch last night." She met her brother's eyes. "I assume that was your friend, Colonel Emrys, you were talking to?"
He grunted in reply.
"Come on, Gwaine...please."
"Laney, I'm fine." He smiled at his sister, trying to show her she had nothing to worry about. He had given that same response to her too many times in the past few months.
"No, you're not. Something got you rattled last night." After a few minutes, she realized that he wasn't going to respond. "She was pretty."
"Who?"
"Lt. Colonel Carter. Is she the one you were gushing over before everything happened?" Laney's brown eyes lit up with mischief.
"Gushing? No...well, maybe," he laughed and took another sip from his coffee cup. "We've known each other since I was first stationed here. It was around the same time she arrived too. We had a few shared lunches on Post. Then I finally get her to agree to a real date, and look what happened."
"I was talking with her some. She said she's still single. You should ask her out again. Maybe it would help you get over that bitch whose ass I can't kick for you."
He almost lost his grip on his coffee cup. Eyeing his sister suspiciously, he asked, "What do you know about her?"
"I overheard Colonel Emrys and Dr. Jones talking when you were still in the hospital. So, not much...other than she betrayed you guys somehow, and broke my baby brother's heart."
Gwaine pushed himself up and moved towards the coffee pot. He refilled his cup and stood, staring out the window towards the barn. The house was an old Sears Bungalow built sometime around 1920 from a catalogue kit that cost just under five grand. It had been modified and updated over the years, so now only the front of the house resembled the original "Bandon" design. The barn was just as old, and the doors needed repair before winter. He tried to settle his mind on what all he needed to do, but it kept circling back to her.
"Eira," he said finally.
"Sorry?"
"Her name was Eira. Gorgeous blond curls, big blue eyes..."
"So, just your type."
"I don't have a type," he protested.
"Bullshit. You may flirt like hell with any woman you come across, but it's those blonds you always end up dating."
He laughed but couldn't argue with her logic when he thought about it. "They really had you sign the forms?" He asked, referring to the non-disclosure forms the military had all their civilian contractors sign. It was a standard legal paper trail, stating that anything of a classified nature was not to be discussed with anyone who wasn't cleared. If caught, it would mean possible jail time, or worse.
"Yeah, it took all afternoon yesterday. I guess your shrink, which I'm glad to hear you're seeing, agreed it would be a good thing."
"I thought that stuff was supposed to be confidential?" He rolled his eyes in an exaggerated motion. "Alright, fine. You're going to think I'm bloody nuts," he warned his sister.
She smiled, "Well, that's nothing new. So...spill!"
Gwaine stared at the floor before he finally asked, "Do you believe in aliens?"
"Like the illegal ones, or the little green men from Mars?"
He sputtered into his coffee. "They're actually gray, and they're not from Mars."
Laney's face was blank while she tried to determine if her younger sibling was serious, or just pulling her leg.
"Told ya, you were going to think I'd gone bonkers."
She held up her hands in mock surrender. "Okay, fine. So aliens exist. I can...believe that. No, seriously, I can Gwaine! What, were you on some alien planet a while back, when all the stars disappeared, and then the weather went wonky? There's been a whole lot of other inexplicable shit since then, too. Plus...rumors of a space ship blasting a hole in Antarctica..."
Gwaine snorted, "Cameron tried to get himself killed in that one."
"Why does that not surprise me? So, are you going to come sit back down and talk to me?"
"Alright." He moved back to the table and began to tell her the basics of the Stargate Program. The Stargate itself created stable wormholes that allowed people and objects to be transported to different planets. Gwaine attempted to explain how a solar flare had caused the wormhole he was traveling through, to become unpredictable, and spat him out somewhere in the past.
"WHOA! I thought you said you dealt with aliens...now, you're telling me you actually time travelled and were stuck in the Dark Ages? To quote Toby: W.T.F.?!"
"You really want me to get into the technical jargon of it all?"
"Hell no."
"Then just shut up and listen." Gwaine squirmed when he was pinned with his sister's 'glare of death'.
They spent the day drinking far too much coffee, while Gwaine told his sister some of his better memories over the past years. She noticed he steered away from anything too emotional. She shut her mouth with an audible snap when she realized her joke about the 'Round Table' months before, really wasn't that far off the mark. Finally, after looking at the clock, Laney realized the bus would be dropping off her boys soon.
"So, you want to tell me about this Eira chick, before the kids get home?" She asked, bringing the conversation around again.
"I'd finally given up the idea of ever coming back home when I met her. Actually, I was happy to do it. She was the perfect damsel in distress...but could still hold her own against a Saxon. I fell hard for her. In less than two weeks I was beginning to plan for a real future there, even with the war going on." His voice dropped. "Then the Battle of Camlann happened. Arthur fell. He was taken away by a friend who hoped to save him, and the rest of us returned to Camelot. We realized someone was passing information, and the queen suspected it was Eira.
"I fed her some false information and later that night, I caught her sending a bird to Morgana..."
He took a deep breath, determined to tell Laney what happened next. It was a part of the story Gwaine had yet to disclose to the psychiatrist. "The next morning...she was hung."
Laney gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. "Gwaine...I...oh, god..." Reining in her own emotions, she stuck her chin out and proclaimed, "Bitch got off too easy."
"What?"
"Oh, you don't even want to imagine what I would have done to her. A hanging was the easy way out."
Gwaine surprised himself by chuckling, "Yeah, I suppose she did." It was the first time he felt something other than the heartache and regret, when thinking about those final days. Even though Eira was able to knock out a Saxon with a makeshift wooden club, the blond lass would have been no match for his spitfire of a sister.
"Ah, hell."
Gwaine's eyes narrowed, wondering what was going through his sister's mind.
"If I would have known, I might not have invited Sam over for dinner tonight."
"Bloody hell, Laney! You did what?"
"Well, it's not as if I knew what happened! I thought some gal had just broken your heart. I didn't know she died!"
The conversation ended as three boys came barging into the house.
"Uncle Gwaine! You got company!" Greg hollered as he threw down his backpack on the living room floor, and joined his brothers in a race to the kitchen.
"HEY! Pick that up! Sheesh! If you want to act like you live in a barn, I have no qualms about moving your beds out there!" Gwaine yelled, addressing all three of them and the trail left behind. He moved through the kitchen doorway, expecting to see Samantha Carter at the door, although it was still a bit early for dinner.
Instead, the dark-haired man standing with a tote in his hand, was a welcome surprise. Merlin was chuckling at the rarely seen paternal side of his friend.
"Damn it, Laney, UPS mixed it up again. It's not that mail-order bride you ordered for me..."
Merlin opened his mouth to say something, but ended up laughing as a potholder smacked Gwaine in the head.
(*~*~*~*)
As it turned out, Sam called a few minutes later expressing her regret that she would be unable to join them for dinner. An emergency had arisen at the Base. Gwaine asked if he needed to go in. Carter told him that it probably wouldn't be necessary, but to keep his phone on, just in case.
Laney shooed the boys out of the house to go check on their great-grandfather and do their chores. Gwaine grabbed a couple of soda cans from the 'fridge and tossed one to Merlin. "Wow, your catching skills have improved," he commented, as he led Merlin through the house to the back porch. "So...what are you doing here?"
Merlin shrugged and took a seat. "After the wake-up call this morning, it sounded like you needed a friend. Martha left for Germany yesterday, and I saw no point in staying in New York by myself. I'm actually starting to regret taking semi-retirement from UNIT. I'd been at the same desk for nearly three decades...but now I'm getting a bit bored just loafing around the house. Hope you don't mind."
"Never. I have a hard time picturing you being a couch potato. How's married life treating you?"
Merlin gave him a goofy grin that didn't need explanation. "How are you holding up?"
"Eh, doing alright. You plan on sticking around long?" Gwaine asked.
"Until you get sick of me, or Martha comes looking. Have you talked to Percival lately?"
"Yeah, he seems to be fitting in quite well with that Torchwood group...once he straightened things out with Captain Harkness."
"I saw the video of the wedding reception, finally."
"What do you mean, finally? You were there when it happened."
Merlin nodded, "I was, but I...something else happened right about that same time...lke a wave of power rolling through the land. I can't really describe it, but things are going to be changing soon."
"Oh?" Gwaine sat forward. His face betrayed the concern over his friend's words.
"It's not like it's anything we can prepare for, but just a..."
"'Funny feeling'?...As Arthur would have called it."
"Yeah. Something like that. Right before he'd call me a girl."
"Well, I'm sure Martha can set him straight on that issue, if he does return."
"I was thinking about what you asked me. If what is coming is as big as I fear, then I don't think we're going to have to worry about one vow or oath over another. We're probably in positions which can help unite them all."
Gwaine's lips pursed. He had a sudden flash of insight with the current enemy that had begun to make itself known in the galaxy. "Have you heard of the Ori?"
Merlin shook his head. "I haven't."
"The scuttlebutt around the Base is they are making anything the SGC has faced before, look like pansies. I'm surprised UNIT and Torchwood aren't involved with the IOA on it."
The blue-eyed man shrugged, "For the most part, Torchwood Institute handles the day-to-day comings and goings in the UK. Torchwood Three, where Percival is, spends most of its time dealing with the interdimensional Rift in the time-space continuum around Cardiff. UNIT is a bit more widespread around the globe. We typically leave anything out further in the galaxy to the SGC. The IOA is supposed to keep us informed...and they may well have, but remember, I told you I work for more of a paranormal division...Or I did, until I left just before the wedding. If Martha heard anything, she hasn't told me about it."
"Hey Gwaine, want to call Boyd and the boys in for dinner?" Laney yelled from the kitchen.
(*~*~*~*)
After dinner the kids were finally in their rooms with their homework. Pops was flipping channels in the living room and Elaine had her sewing machine set up in the dining room, working on Gwaine's uniforms.
Laney had bought the new insignia after signing the massive amounts of paperwork with Walter on the day of Gwaine's promotion, so he'd be ready when he walked into work the following day.
Merlin had originally planned to stay in a hotel, but that was unheard of in Gwaine's family. Even if they were not expected, guests weren't allowed to stay in a hotel when a room was available. Of course, Toby didn't realize until after dinner, that it was his room that was being offered and like a typical teenager, had thrown a massive fit at the thought of bunking with his brother.
The ancient warlock had tried to argue the case that he would be perfectly okay in a hotel, and had watched the teenager with uneasy eyes.
"What's wrong Merlin? You act like you've never seen a teenager have a tizzy-fit before." Gwaine commented, as he made his way through the old barn, with Merlin following him around. The former knight was determined to try and get the doors back in their tracks, before he ran out of time. In Colorado, where there was sunshine more than three-hundred days a year, an outsider would think that there would be plenty of time left to fix things up. The catch was that in the fall and winter months, there could be a full-blown blizzard roaring through, and you'd still be able to see the sun.
"Gwaine, I haven't really been around kids since my own. I mean, I do some volunteer storytelling and such from time to time...but that about covers it. Are you sure you don't want me to help you with these doors?"
Gwaine laughed as he pulled out a ladder. "Naw, I've got it. So you did have kids at one point though?"
"Didn't I tell you about them?" Merlin pursed his lips, trying to recall all the conversations over the phone. Gwaine shook his head and set up the ladder next to the large sliding doors. "Yeah, uh...Mithian and I had two kids."
"Whoa! Mithian...as in the Princess of Nemeth, Mithian?" His eyes were nearly popping out of his head as he considered the idea. In the logical part of his mind, he knew a lot of time had passed, but his senses were still conflicted. It seemed like only a year or so ago, when they had gone on a mission to rescue King Rodor, Mithian's father, from Odin and Morgana.
"Yes." The years in Nemeth had been such a wonderful time in his life. Even with the loss of Camelot, his wife and their children had given him so much hope.
Gwaine sputtered, "You married Mithian? Two kids...wow."
"That was before we realized I wasn't aging. After that..." Merlin's face was strained as he thought over the reasoning for the decision he had made so long ago. "I can't even rightfully recall why I chose to never have any more children with anyone else. I think it was because it was too hard watching them grow up...and grow old...or something."
"Did they have any offspring?" Gwaine asked, trying to draw more out of his friend, while he struggled with the door.
"Are you certain you wouldn't..."
"No." Gwaine cut him off. He was stubbornly determined to fix the barn on his own.
Merlin chuckled and continued, "Yes, they did. I actually followed one of the lines of some of the kids and grandkids, and such, for generations. It was only a few decades ago that I finally lost track. I'm sure there are more of my descendants out there, but they all seem so distant to me now. Just strangers passing on the streets.
"Sometimes I'd actually try and become a part of their lives, either as some crazy distant uncle, or just a friendly neighbor. The last one I did that with, was a girl named Nancy...maybe half a century ago. She was a sweet child who loved hearing an old man's stories. The ones about you mostly..." Merlin paused, recalling what Gwaine had said about being named after himself. He noticed his friend was staring at him blankly. "What was your mother's name?"
Gwaine clucked his tongue and stared down at Merlin from the ladder. "Nancy...and she was one-hundred percent Brit. Webster was her maiden name, if that's what you're going to ask next."
The look on Merlin's face said it all. Gwaine began laughing so hard, he lost his balance on the ladder and began to fall. Merlin easily reached out with his magic and caught his friend...and descendant, lowering him safely to the ground.
The sound of a tongue clicking against teeth had them spinning towards the side door of the barn.
Laney stared at the two of them for a moment. She held up her hands when her brother opened his mouth. "I'm going to go pour myself a rather large whiskey. I am then going to have a cigarette. AH! Don't you dare interrupt me right now!' She pointed an accusing finger at her brother before he could utter a single syllable. "That will give you boys a chance to get your stories straight, before you come and tell me what the hell I just saw." She spun on her heel and walked back towards the house.
(*~*~*~*)
Fingernails drummed out an unsteady rhythm on the half-filled glass of amber alcohol. The fingers of the other hand held a smoldering white cigarette, the smoke from the end of it curling up and dissipating into the night sky.
Elaine had gone into the barn with a purpose...but what that was, she couldn't recall. Knowing that her brother was working on fixing the tracks which allowed the main doors of the barn to slide open and close, she'd gone through the smaller side door. She could hear her brother and his friend talking, although only the last clip of their conversation reached her ears. Gwaine was talking about their mother.
As she came around the corner, listening to her brother cackling, Laney had full view of the ladder as it wobbled under him. Her heart stopped and she didn't even have time to yell a warning, before Gwaine was falling from the top of the twelve-foot A-Frame.
Then time stopped...or slowed...or something...
Aliens? Well, everyone in the modern world had some sort of theory about them, so it wasn't too much of a shock to hear that her brother worked with some.
Time travel? She'd watched enough science fiction movies over the years to have a clue; plus what Gwaine had told her earlier in the day finally made sense. It explained some of his speech and mannerisms since his return.
No...what she saw in the barn was different. Laney knew that; somewhere deep in her soul. The instant fear that her brother...recently returned to her life, would suddenly being taken from it again by an act as simple as falling from a ladder...was etched on her heart.
In that moment, her mind had barely registered the glow in Colonel Emrys' eyes. Now, it played that memory in HD, over and over again.
Hearing and seeing were two completely different animals. She inhaled deeply from the end of her cigarette, blowing the smoke out through her nostrils. Lifting the glass, she registered the clinking of ice against the walls of the container, as she put it to her lips.
Half-lidded brown eyes watched, as the two men came sheepishly out of the barn towards the porch. Laney had pushed past the spike of initial fear and was now bordering on anger...an outlet for the rush of adrenaline as her body responded to the near-crisis she had witnessed.
"Sit," she ordered them. Her voice was low and soft, not unlike the tone she used when her sons were in serious trouble. "What the hell did I see in there?"
Merlin rubbed the back of his neck, a guilty smirk on his face.
Gwaine's lips were twitching, as he tried to decide the best way to explain. "Well, you know those stories Mom used to tell us, about King Arthur and Merlin and all that..."
"Yes. Also, I remember what you told me earlier today about it." Her tone held no room for joking.
"Um...yeah. I think I might have left out the part where this is the real 'Merlin'...and he has magic."
"I see." Laney's eyes shifted from her brother to other man.
"Oh yeah, and he's also our ancestor?"
"Are you asking me, or telling me?"
"Uh..." Gwaine took ahold of Merlin by the shoulders and placed the thinner man in between him and his sister. With an encouraging pat on Merlin's back, Gwaine smiled, "He can explain."
"Way to throw your buddy under the bus, Gwaine!"
"I concur." Merlin agreed, glaring backwards over his shoulder.
AN: As a small way to honor my amazing proof-reader, her name is now immortalized in this story. Oh and did you know Nance is a diminutive from the medieval name Annis? Kinda cool, huh? :D
Anyhoo- I'm about 4 chapters ahead in writing this, and 1 ahead in editing, but I'm an evil person so I'm going to stick to just posting one every couple of days. PLUS OMG OMG OMG my muses came back with a vengeance for Lord of Beasts! YIPEE! And now with my kid in school, I should be able to work on both stories.
Quick welcome to Mergana Pendragon and CarolynneRuth who have just started reading and reviewing this story. (although they are still on earlier chapters) I would HIGHLY recommend checking out CarolynneRuth's story 'Forgotten Lives' It is a very unique and beautifully done take on a Merlin reincarnation fic, that I just LOVE! The military aspect helped to inspire a bit of my own story.
Flamie: please don't die...I already killed off two other fangirls this week with Gwaine running half-naked. LOL (*starts singing* dun dun dun...another one bites the dust)
IcarusLSU: So glad I have you for an idea bouncer...especially with the new 'King of Rock' rabid plot squirrel that escaped this morning.
Nance: You already know you rock! And yes there was probably pickled eggs.
TiP: hehe a few more chapters until that might happen.
Aerist: hmmm I wonder how it fits together too! hehe
Tholey: I love the lengthy reviews! Your words and enthusiasm just brighten my day!
Thanks for reading!