Ok trying to upload this AGAIN! *headdesk*

So...the Gwaine shower chapter wasn't as bad as it could have been LOL. (certainly not as bad as the Leon/Laney stuff :P)

Thanks to IcarusLSU for some flow issue help, and Nance for proofing and reviewing. Glad you got a kick out of poor Cam's misery.

AWanderersHaven: Oh, yes...Cameron is going to have a few words for his friend in chapter 42, glad you enjoyed the extended Leon/Laney stuff hehe.

Hope you all had a great holiday season and are amped up for 2014!

Each time I think I'm ready to really get things moving in this, some character wants a bit more of a soft spotlight to highlight where they are, and where they have been. I'm a slave to my muses...most of which resemble Scrat from Ice Age...and the plots are the acorns he covets.

Please take a minute to review at the end, if you would be so kind, even just the simplest words can feed my muses for weeks! Next update will be posted by 1/5/14.

"A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it."

- George Moore

Leon glanced out to the gardens below. The clouds, which had started to dissipate earlier, had returned with a vengeance, and were pouring their souls out on the manicured lawns and hedges. Rivulets of mud wound their way through the garden paths, like tiny flash floods, taking out whatever was in their paths in the way of debris that hadn't been cleared. It washed them to drains, where the previous year's fallen leaves would gather in a brown pile, and clog the flow of the run-off; creating puddles and temporary ponds, where later, birds would gather to wash themselves or drink.

He hated the rain. Why bother getting wet from a downpour, when he could hop in his ship and go someplace with better weather? Had he become a coward...running from the rain, just as he had from nearly everything else in the prior fifteen hundred years?

If what had happened...getting caught by Gwaine...had happened anywhere else, he would have run then, too. Instead though, he'd surprised himself and stuck around for dinner. Of course, afterwards he had shared a private 'dessert' with Laney, when Gwaine left to go meet a friend of his for drinks. The younger man had politely invited Leon to tag along, even though he knew the invitation wouldn't be accepted. He had convinced himself, that it was only because of Gwaine's insistence that he had stuck around.

He had slipped out quietly, in the middle of the night...having actually stayed around long enough for her to fall asleep after their encounter. Leon wanted to bang his head against a wall. He had been around too long. That's what it was, he thought. He'd just lived far too long. He was too jaded and exhausted to care anymore. His mission of protecting Arthur's sword had taken its toll, and now that was done, he was tired. Yes, he mused. He was tired of living for so long, running, fighting, hiding...not having a life of his own.

His life, however, had never been his own. Since the day he was born into nobility, his life had been destined to serve the Crown of Camelot, as his father had done. His training as a page and a squire; his vows of knighthood to Uther and Camelot; the arranged marriage...it was all a path chosen by someone else. After Camelot...after Nemeth...he was thrust into an existence that, at first, made him fearful, but then fascinated him. It was perhaps sixty Earth years later, on the eve of his first century, that he had really begun to feel the effects of not being able to age...or to die.

The loss of so many in such a short time; from Camlann until they fled to Nemeth. In less than two years, he had lost everything. He buried his pain and his grief, deep below the surface; needing to be a strong leader for the refugees.

Once they were settled in Nemeth, life began to move on. He shackled his emotions and used them to fuel his rage on the battlefield, as he took a position high up in the Nemethian Army. The friendship he had with Merlin, had become rather distant. He was proud to speak up and help Merlin attain a level of status, the warlock had been denied in Camelot. Had Arthur survived Camlann, things could have been different...or, perhaps not. There had still been the Plague not long after, that had taken his family.

Leon returned to Nemeth for events, like Merlin's wedding, but he tried to keep himself moving, always running from his heartache.

It was a few decades after being brought aboard the Asgardian ship, that he felt ready to venture out on his own in space. The temple seemed like a perfect place to rest. It had been a very tranquil time in the knight's life, possibly the most peaceful time of his existence he'd ever experienced. The temple, was much like those of the Gregorian Monks on Earth. It gave him time to reflect and a time to rest, after the darkness that had encompassed his life.

"Welcome to our temple." The younger man with dark brown hair, and sparkling eyes, had said in greeting.

"My thanks." Leon said, setting his rucksack to the side.

The man looked over Leon, his eyes settling on the sword. "Forgive me, but we do not allow weapons inside our sanctuary."

Leon gave a dejected sigh. "This is not a weapon, quite as you might understand it to be. This sword is a sacred blade. I have been charged with its safekeeping. I swear I will never unsheath it, nor use it."

The monk searched Leon's eyes, finally arriving at the truth. "I believe you. Your eyes tell me you have seen enough bloodshed."

For the first time since the fall of Camelot, Leon felt a connection with another human being. It was indescribable...the warmth of the younger man's smile...the acceptance in his blue eyes...Leon's heart cried out in elation.

"Please, be welcome in our temple."

For years, Leon had stayed, as a member of their order. Most of their days were filled in silence, working in gardens that fed the local populace, or in meditative chanting. Leon didn't completely buy into the doctrine of the monks, but it was enough to escape for a time.

He kept his history and the details of the sword a secret, even from his friend, for a good number of years. Finally he relented, just to ease the burden on his own shoulders.

It had been twenty-four years since he had first set foot in the temple. The young man who had greeted him, was now approximately the same age Leon had been, when he had left Earth. They sat quietly one evening, after prayers, and his companion finally asked about the sword.

"You do not need to answer, but I do find myself so curious at times, of the history of, not only yourself, but the sword you guard. Will I ever be worthy enough to hear the story?"

Leon looked to the sword, and smiled sadly at the memories that came to his mind unbidden. "Do you realize, I would be nearly a century old in a few days, if I was still on my home planet?"

The other man shrugged and smiled cordially. It wasn't unheard of for other humanoid beings in the galaxy to age differently. "Is that unusual for your people?"

Nodding slowly, Leon responded with a simple, "Yes."

His companion must have thought that Leon wasn't going to answer his initial query, so he seemed surprised when Leon spoke again.

"It belonged to my king. I was first among his knights and his guard. I had a wife, children, friends...It was a life filled with blood and battle, but I could return to Camelot at the end of a patrol to a hot meal of venison, and warm greetings from my children, as they asked me to tell them stories of bandits and monsters I may have encountered." It was the first time, he had opened up to anyone about his past. It felt good, like a long overdue cleansing of his soul.

They spent the entire night together in conversation. Leon explained what he knew about the sword, and the prophecies surrounding it. Little did he realize, a young acolyte squatted outside the window of Leon's cell, listening to the tales of kings and dragons, and swords of power.

Two days later, on the eve of Leon's one-hundredth birthday, the attack came from the sky. A Goa'uld named Ba'al came in his mothership, searching for a weapon. Leon fled the temple with the sword in hand. He tried to get his friend to join him, but the man would not waver. He seemed almost frantically insistent that Leon stay as well.

Lancelot's visage, beckoning to him from near a hidden exit, made the knight's decision for him.

He returned later to find nearly everything destroyed. He found the young acolyte, crying over the dead and mutilated body of Leon's companion.

"This wasn't supposed to happen. Ba'al was supposed to take the sword, and in return he would grant the people of my home freedom." The boy cried. "It was my brother's idea." He said, indicating the body. "He never liked you having the weapon here."

Leon didn't know whether to pity the boy, or run him through. He realized then, his mistake in trusting someone. Twenty-four years with the man, and this was the way his faith and friendship was repaid.

Leon chose to walk away. He vowed that he would never again, allow himself to open his heart. From that day, he was marked; a branded man...roaming the galaxy in an attempt to stay one step ahead of those that coveted the sword.

The centuries ran together. Most of the time, he couldn't remember things that had happened from one year to the next. He knew there were good times, but the majority was a blur of vignettes. He'd had relationships that lasted a few years, before he would either get bored, or more often than not, something would happen to cause him to move on. He wouldn't admit to actively looking for a way out of anything that involved emotion, but he would have been hard pressed to deny it as well.

Rumors had spread like wildfire throughout the star system, about the sword's power. Many races in the galaxy, such as the Goa'uld, lived extremely long lives. The Jaffa, servants of the Goa'uld, had a lifespan of over two-hundred years. Their memories, especially when teased by the idea of a powerful weapon made by the Furlings, were long.

The sword now belonged to Arthur once more, and the ancient knight wondered, as he stared at the gray sky out the window, where that left him. He hadn't seen Lancelot, since the day he accidentally beamed Laney up to his ship, instead of her brother, so asking the Ascended knight was out of the question.

He shifted in his chair, when a door nearby opened. Merlin came out of the ensuite bathroom in nothing but a towel, obviously expecting to be alone in his room.

The warlock's dark blue eyes lit on Leon. He showed no sign of being surprised, other than to raise his eyebrows in inquiry.

"Five to ten years, huh?" Leon asked, absently.

Merlin simply nodded, and moved into his walk-in closet.

"I don't know whether to feel saddened, or to congratulate you. I will admit, I am a bit jealous."

Re-emerging from the closet, in jogging bottoms and a shirt, Merlin walked up to the window. He leaned his shoulder against the frame, and stared out. "I don't know what to feel either. You're probably the only one who could understand that a part of me wants to jump for joy.

"I'm not immortal...I won't have to bury another wife. All I would need to do to achieve that is...nothing. Not a (i)damn(/) thing. Just let this disease that I feel growing inside my soul, do its work. Wait for Aithusa, wherever he is, to die, and then I would die. I already feel it. I have for a while now, and didn't know what it was..."

Leon studied his friend for a while, before coming to a conclusion. "...But you're not going to do that, are you?"

Merlin turned and met Leon's stare. He shrugged, "It would be like committing suicide...just the long way around. I don't know what I'm going to do."

The blond knight stood up and stretched. He moved to stand against the other side of the window frame. "At least, you still have a purpose. Now that Arthur has his sword back, I guess all I can do is hang around and wait until the inevitable happens. You may not be human, but he still is, and thanks to that fracking Cup...I don't know where I fit in this anymore."

"I want to talk to your alien friend about that, actually. I've read some interesting stuff about the Cup recently, trying to figure out its properties and such."

"What do you want to know? I have all the information about it on a couple of data crystals. One has some information from the Asgard. The other is programed only to be read with the system that was used to write it...and I have yet to find that."

Merlin smirked and evaluated his friend. He made a soft snorting sound, before turning back to the view. "Yeah, I guess that's something you would have tried to figure out about."

"For all the good it does me. I can't make head nor tails of half the crap in the Asgard file, even after staring at it for centuries. Hell, even if I did have a clue about it, the Cup has been lost for so long...It might have flown off to the stars with your dragon, for all I know."

The warlock stiffened.

Leon didn't appear to notice. He was too lost in his own thoughts. "Arthur filled us in on a few things...asking if I had seen, or heard, anything about a dragon out there in space."

"...and have you?"

"Rumors here and there that might help. Which is good for you, but..."

Merlin started chuckling. He was shaking his head, as he turned and walked over to a wall panel.

Leon watched him open it, and took minor note that there seemed to be a liquor cabinet, hidden in the recess. Merlin pulled out two tumblers and a decanter. Using one hand to pour, he used the other to hold the glasses.

"You keep a lot of things hidden, don't you?" He asked rhetorically and turned back out, hoping the rain would be more interesting than the alcohol.

"Yes, I do. I think it's something we've both learned, wouldn't you say?" Merlin responded. He tapped Leon on the shoulder with a glass.

Unmindfully, Leon took it and started bringing it towards his mouth, before he noticed it was a stemmed goblet, not a glass tumbler. In his shock, he dropped it.

Merlin's eyes flashed just before it hit the ground, and the Cup of Life froze mid-air. "This is rather new bamboo flooring. I really would prefer it not to get marred."

Leon laughed, and reached down to grab the suspended chalice. He looked up and accepted the actual glass of liquid, that Merlin was holding out to him with his other hand. He smiled genuinely, for the first time in centuries, and raised his glass in a toast. "You son of a bitch."

Merlin clicked his glass to Leon's, while he protested, "Oy! I may not remember much about my mother, but she was a nice woman."

"Oh, I remember her...especially at your wedding to Mithian."

Merlin choked on his drink, and tried to glare at his friend. They soon found themselves laughing in remembrance of the soft-spoken, peasant woman.

After a snippet of an overheard conversation regarding her son's upbringing, she had single-handedly managed to cow more than a few nobles into eating their words...and she had never raised her voice once.

Sighing fondly, Merlin turned back towards the window. His voice was as distant as his thoughts. "I think she would have liked Martha."

"I think she would have been proud of all you have done." Leon set his glass on the window ledge. "Whatever happened to her?"

Merlin had to think about the question, before he could answer. "Mithian and I were touring the mainland, partly looking for you, but also visiting the court of some Frankish or Visigoth king. I can't quite recall. By the time we returned to Nemeth, I was informed there had been an attack on Ealdor, where my mother had still insisted on living."

Leon gave his friend a pat on the shoulder. "Sorry to hear that."

"It was a long time ago..."

"Wasn't it all, my friend. Wasn't it all."